Gottstein
Trust Fellowships
James Bulinski
will
use his Fellowship to travel to the USA where he will investigate
the rapidly-developing US carbon market, including existing
voluntary markets and the emerging mandatory compliance market.
An impetus for the project is the recent successful passage
of the American Clean Energy & Security Act, potentially
creating a substantial demand for Australian forest carbon.
A key objective of the project is to identify practical pathways
for Australian forest managers to take advantage of such opportunities.
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Milos
Ivkovic plans to visit the Genetic Improvement
and Physiology of Forest Trees unit within the INRA laboratories
and their field sites in France to address a range of issues
in silviculture and wood quality relating to tree breeding.
He will examine the effect of climate on tree ring wood properties,
the effect of heatwaves on tree mortality and its correlation
with ring width and/or density. He will also investigate genotype-by-growth
season interactions and implications for genetic selection
and plantation management, and the consequences for softwood
plantation productivity and profitability.
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Jim
O'Hehir will travel to South Africa to
study the latest developments in precision forestry globally.
He will also address issues in timber resource management, specifically
estate growth and yield regulation, including log product prediction,
and review scientific and policy developments relating to plantations
and water use. He will visit major South Africa forestry organisations
to review the application of areas of major significance to
the forest growing and processing industry in Australia.
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Andrea
Leys will use her fellowship to travel
to New Zealand to investigate the social attitudes to the
current carbon emissions trading scheme in that country. Her
project will improve the Australian forestry industry knowledge
of how the emissions trading scheme has impacted forestry
in New Zealand and what issues to be aware of if and when
a carbon trading scheme is established in Australia.
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Roger Meder
plans to visit the Univesity of Wurzburg in Germany to use
high pressure magnetic resonance facilities to study the wood
water relationship and how it affects the drying rate, and
the drying quality, of wood. High pressure magnetic resonance
equipment is not available in Australia and New Zealand and
this project will provide considerable insight into how water
may move through wood which will inform improved drying techniques
for Australian timber species.
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Ashley Webb
will travel to various parts of the USA to determine how forest
managers pay for watershed services in that country. The payment
of watershed services from forest management has been in force
for over 20 years in the USA and the understanding of the
scheme as it works in the USA will provide valuable insight
as to how such a scheme may operate in Australia should it
ever be introduced.
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John Hickey
will use his fellowship to investigate the silvicultural practices
of German selection forestry to see if there is any relevance
to the wet eucalypt forests of south-east Australia. He will
also travel to Sweden to compare their clearfell silvicultural
practices and provide a broad understanding of the differences
in harvesting approaches and why these practices may or may
not be relevant to wet eucalypt forests in Australia.
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Paul Kremer
will undertake extensive domestic and international travel
to investigate fire retardant timber building materials. With
recent extreme fire events in Australia much of the building
code is requiring rebuilds to be undertaken with “fire
retardant” materials and at present there is no fire
retardant additive that may be added to wood to allow it to
be used in the Bush Fire Zones. Paul will examine developments
in both the US and Japan to determine if there are any realistic
products available that could assist the timber industry to
continue to build in designated Bush Fire Zones.
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