The 2007 International Pulpwood Resource
and Trade Conference featured speakers from around the globe.

 

Eric Abetz, Senator, Tasmania, Australia
Senator Eric Abetz was chosen by the Parliament of Tasmania on the on 22 February 1994 to fill a casual Senate vacancy. He was re-elected on 3 October 1998 and again on 9 October 2004, when he recorded the highest vote ever (by number and percentage) by a Tasmanian Senate candidate.

Senator Abetz, aged 47, is married with three children and resides at Kingston in Tasmania.

Prior to entering Parliament he was State President of the Liberal Party of Australia, Tasmanian Division for three and a half years from 1990-94 and practised as a barrister and solicitor in the legal partnership of Abetz, Curtis and Docking.

Senator Abetz was educated at the University of Tasmania where he graduated with an Arts degree in 1978 and a Law degree in 1981. He was admitted as a barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Tasmania on 29 August 1983 and admitted to the High Court of Australia in 1986.

Senator Abetz is the first and only Tasmanian to be elected Federal President of the Australian Liberal Students’ Federation and is also the only life member of the Tasmanian University Liberal Club. He is also a life member of the Australian Liberal Students’ Federation.

Senator Abetz has served as Chairman of the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee and as the Chairman of the Native Title and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Land Fund Committee. He has also served as Chairman of the Attorney-General and Justice Government Members’ Committee.

Senator Abetz was appointed to the Howard Government’s second Ministry as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence in December 1998 and promoted to the position of Special Minister of State on the 30 January 2001. He was promoted to the position of Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation on 27 January 2006.

Senator Abetz also represents the Ministers for Employment and Workplace Relations, Workforce Participation, and the Special Minister of the State in the Senate, where he answers questions on their behalf and has carriage of relevant legislation.

Anthony Abraham, Macquarie Bank, Australia
Head of Retail Agribusiness and Executive Director, Macquarie Bank Limited, Director of Macquarie Alternative Assets Management Limited.

Anthony has overall responsibility for Macquarie's retail agribusiness operations. In 2003, Anthony led the team that developed and now operates the Macquarie Forestry Investment and the Macquarie Almond Investment.

Anthony Abraham joined Macquarie in 1990 after four years in the tax consulting division of one of the big four Chartered Accounting firms.

Anthony has an Economics Law degree from Macquarie University and a Master of Laws degree from the University of Sydney. Anthony is also a Chartered Accountant.

John Bingham - Research Director, Hawkins Wright Ltd, London, UK
John Bingham is an economist with twenty-five years' experience as an analyst and consultant in the natural resource industries. John joined Hawkins Wright in 1994 to launch Pulpwatch, the monthly market pulp industry newsletter of which he remains editor. He also contributes to many of Hawkins Wright's other reports and services, including: The Outlook for Market Pulp and Defining the China Market for Pulp, Paper and Board, - now in its fourth edition. He was the principal author of Hawkins Wright's multi-client study on price risk management in the pulp and paper industry and has undertaken private consultancy assignments for individual clients in more than thirty countries.

David Brand, New Forests, Australia
David Brand is Managing Director of Sydney-based New Forests, Pty Limited. New Forests specializes in designing investments that will encompass both traditional forest management and new environmental markets such as carbon sequestration, watershed management and biodiversity enhancement. Previously he was director of the New Forests Program with the Hancock Natural Resource Group (HNRG). Prior to joining HNRG, David was Executive General Manager of State Forests of NSW. In that position, he was active in supporting the development of carbon trading in New South Wales. From 1985 to 1995 he worked with the Canadian Forest Service as a scientist, director of scientific programs and ultimately as national Director-General of Science and Sustainable Development. He has a Ph.D in Forestry from the University of British Columbia and B. Sc. Forestry from the University of Toronto.

Ian Dalgleish, GM Austrlia and International Marketing Pacific Basin Shipping Australia, Melbourne.
Ian started his working career as a trainee deck officer in the BHP merchant marine fleet in 1980. As a Master Mariner he transferred from sea going shipping to a commercial role within the BHP head office in 1992. In 1996 he was posted to Chile where he had responsibility for shipping product from for the Escondida and Tintaya mines. He also dealt with regional business development for BHP Transport. In 2000 he was posted to Venezuela in a similar role looking after shipping for Orinoco Iron. In 2001 he returned to Australia to run BHPBilliton’s handy size chartering operation.

In 2004 Ian left BHPB to open an Australian office for Pacific Basin Shipping. The role is twofold, running the Australian parceling business and having responsibility for global business development.

Robert Donnelly, RDA, New Zealand
Robert Donnelly, Principal, RH Donnelly & Associates, Visiting Lecturer, School of Forestry University of Canterbury (part-time)

Robert Donnelly serves as part-time Visiting Lecturer in Marketing and International trade at the University of Canterbury School of Forestry. In addition, he undertakes forest products consulting projects in marketing, senior management advisory services, and project development work, primarily in the Southern Hemisphere including Australia.. He maintains offices in Christchurch and in Curitiba, Brazil and has worked for most of the Brazilian forest industry leaders, in both pulp & paper and solid wood. For the past 3 years, Donnelly & Associates have co-sponsored very successful Brazil forest industry tours (7-day & 14-day) to introduce international professionals and industry business personnel to the Brazilian forest and products industry. A fourth tour is planned for 15 and 22 April 2007 (www.worldforestinvestments.com)

In terms of market development, Donnelly has been involved in market-related studies involving New Zealand native beech forests under sustainable management. In addition he has recently been involved in market research for plantation-based eucalyptus solid wood products for South American producers and potential products.

In 2004, Donnelly served as the Senior Trade and Industry Team Leader for a German Mission evaluating the Vietnam forest products industry. A German aid program has committed to spending euro 4.5 million in Vietnam over the next 3 years devoted to capacity building (training) and other activities related to improving the efficiency of the industry. More recently, Donnelly hosted a US remanufacture interested in establishing radiate pine joinery operations in New Zealand to cut-up and finger joint blanks for the US.

Håkan Ekström, Wood Resources International, Seattle, US
Mr. Håkan Ekström is the President of Wood Resources International LLC, an internationally recognized consulting firm established in 1987. His firm provides forest market analysis and wood price reporting for the forest industry worldwide.

He has, for the past 20 years, worked in various capacities relating to wood products utilization, international forest products marketing and global wood supply. His international experience is extensive, including visitation of more than 15 countries to research forest resource issues and to study forest products industry developments on-site.

He is also the editor of the Wood Resource Quarterly and the North American Wood Fiber Review. These two reports track wood fiber markets and focus on the global and the North American market, respectively. The reports include information about wood costs, wood supply and trade of wood products in all the major regions of the world.

Mr. Ekstrom has previously worked for Center for International Trade in Forest Products (CINTRAFOR) in Seattle, UN-ECE in Geneva, Switzerland and the Royal College of Forestry in Sweden. He received his MSc in Forestry in Sweden in 1985.

Calton J. Frame, Gunns Limited,
Current Roles: Currently Resource Manager for Gunns Limited, overseeing systems that underpin sustainable forest management activities within the Company (AFS and CoC certification). Overseeing IIS development for BBPM in relation to key environmental and economic assessment.

Capabilities: Detailed analytical ability arising from 10 years experience in the Tasmanian forest industry and Gunns business. Thorough knowledge of legislative framework guiding resource and environmental management in the State.

Qualifications: B. Science (Forestry)B. Economics

Bob Flynn, RISI Inc, USA (also part of Organising Committee)
Robert Flynn is Director of International Timber for RISI. His work involves analysis of trends in international timber supply and demand and trade in pulpwood and sawlogs. Prior to joining RISI in April 2006, he worked 18 years as a consultant with several firms including Jay Gruenfeld Associates and Wood Resources International, assisting clients in understanding trends in forest resources, forest ownership, and industrial development in Southern Hemisphere plantation forest countries, China, and elsewhere. In addition, Mr. Flynn worked 11 years as a forester, primarily for Champion International in Oregon. Projects in 2006 have included multi-client studies on China’s timber supply deficit, the Global Tree Farm and Managed Forest Industry (comparison of growing costs and investment opportunities in planted forests around the world), and the International Pulpwood Resource and Trade Review (also known as “The Woodchip Report”, 14th Edition published February 2007).

John Fredrick, Midway Plantations, Geelong Australia
After graduating with a Bachelor of Economics, John joined Shell Australia where he was involved in a broad range of management responsibilities over 20 years in marketing and planning including a 3 year secondment as GM of Shell Korea based in Seoul. In 1996 he was appointed as CEO of Midway Pty Ltd, the privately owned forestry group participating in the company's expansion through organic growth and acquisitions over the past decade. Midway has strong ties with markets in Japan, China and Australia

Bob Gordon, Forestry Tasmania, Tasmania
Bob Gordon is the Managing Director of Forestry Tasmania. He was previously the Executive Director of the Pulp Mill Task Force, and previous to that was General Manager (Marketing) at Forestry Tasmania, having originally been appointed as a Forestry Commissioner in 1991.

He is a Director of the Board of Connect Credit Union (Tasmania’s largest and most successful locally owned financial institution).

He was the Tasmanian Public Service Association’s youngest and longest serving president and held numerous positions in the Trade Union movement.

He has held a variety of positions in community groups including the Executive of the Tasmanian Council of Social Services (TASCoss), Chairman of the Fingal Community Centre, Chairman of the Richmond Online Access Centre and a variety of other voluntary organisations.

Michael Hay, Pitcher Partners, Melbourne Australia
Professional background: Michael is a partner in the Tax Consulting division of Pitcher Partners Melbourne and leads the firm’s GST practice. He joined Pitcher Partners in 1993 and was admitted to the partnership in 2000. Michael principally advises private businesses and high wealth individuals, across a broad range of industries. He is a member of the Board of Taxation Expert Advisory Panel and a member of the National Tax Practice Committee of CPA Australia. Michael is a regular presenter at seminars conducted by the Taxation Institute of Australia, CPA Australia, and the Australian Taxpayers Association.

Industry expertise: Throughout his career he has gained significant experience providing services to clients within the property and construction, manufacturing and professional services industries.

Areas of expertise include Structuring, GST, International and Trusts.

Professional qualifications and memberships include Bachelor of Law (Monash University), Bachelor of Economics (Monash University), Associate of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia, Member of the Taxation Institute of Australia and Member of the Australian Society of Certified Practising Accountants

Pedro Jaramillo, Bosques Cautin, Chile
I am Chilean and was born on May 13th 1950 in the United States. I am a Civil Industrial Engineer of the Universidad de Chile in Santiago. After working for 2 years in the Construction sector in Chile, I joined Celulosa Arauco for 16 years. In that Company I had several different positions including sawmills operations, woodpulp marketing and finally I was in charge of all the forestry operations of the Arauco Group of Companies. This included some 450.000 hectares of plantations, sawmilling and logs exports. After Arauco I worked for more than 10 years in the Chilean Wine Sector in a time when wine exports were starting to boom. In 2002 I joined Bosques Cautin as Executive Director and from early 2005 I took the position as Managing Director or CEO, based in Temuco, where our forests are. This Company is presently managing some 17,000 hectares of eucalyptus plantations and the plan is to grow to at least 30,000 hectares in the following years.

Patrick Kime, NCT Forestry Co-Op, South Africa
Patrick Kime has been the General Manager of NCT Forestry Co operative for the past three years. (NCT is a forestry co-operative founded in 1949 to serve the timber marketing needs of independent, non-corporate tree farmers in South Africa, and now has 2000 members for whom it markets, mainly as exports, 2.5 million tons of timber per annum.) Prior to becoming General Manager of NCT he was the GM of NCT Tree Farming, a subsidiary company which manages tree farms of behalf of some of NCT's members, and also worked prior to that in planning and operations in Sappi for a number of years.

He obtained a BSc in Forestry from Stellenbosch University in 1982.

 

Peter Lyford-Pike, Pike & Co., Uruguay (also part of Organising Committee)
Peter Lyford-Pike started his involvement with the forestry sector in 1988, as one of the founding Directors and General Manager of Tile SA, the first Eucalyptus pulpwood exporter out of Uruguay.

Immediately following this activity, he was directly involved in starting two companies doing the first large scale Eucalyptus plantations and the first exporting Eucalyptus sawmill in Uruguay. He also started, for the same Uruguayan Group “Otegui Forestal”, the pulpwood export operations out of Argentina.

In 2002 he left the Group and founded Pike & Co, a forestry consulting firm. This firm has successfully completed more than 24 consulting assignments for international forestry sector corporations and international public agencies, on top of numerous studies for domestic companies and government entities.

Peter is a partner in Forestal Atlántico Sur SARL, a company established in 2006, specialised in forestry management and logistic services, and forestry exports. He is also a partner in Carbosur SRL, a company dedicated to preparing and implementing CDM and environmental projects.

He is one of the three co-organizers of the International Pulpwood Resource and Trade Conferences, and has made presentations on the Uruguayan and Argentinean forestry sectors in numerous international seminars.

Malcolm McComb, PENTARCH, Australia
Malcolm is the Managing Director of Pentarch Forest Products. He holds a BPD - Melbourne University and until recently was a member of the Plantation Timber Association of Australia Board.

Based in Melbourne Pentarch Forest Products Pentarch Forest Products is a major exporter of plantation grown Radiata pine and selected hardwoods from Australia and New Zealand.

Over the past 14 years Malcolm has been closely involved (both strategically and operationally) in establishing and developing Pentarch Forest Products to become one of Australia’s leading suppliers of timber products to the markets of Asia and the Middle East. In more recent years the group developed a range of sawn lumber materials. The shipping logistics support network that accompanies the procurement effort is extensive.

Malcolm has had 18+ experience in all aspects of International Trade which as lead to a wide range of contacts throughout the Middle East, India and South East and Northern Asia.

Stuart McLean, Green Triangle Forest Products, South Australia
Stuart is Manager of Export Woodchip for Green Triangle Forest Products (GTFP). He studied Forestry and Business at the University of Melbourne.

From a rural background, Stuart owns a grazing property in South-Western Victoria raising Angus beef cattle and Quarterhorses.

Based in Mount Gambier, South Australia, GTFP is a joint venture between Weyerhaeuser and Global Forest Partners. GTFP has approximately 50,000 acres of radiata pine, it manufactures high-quality forest products in two sawmills and a finger jointing plant. GTFP is a major exporter of softwood chips.

Dennis Neilson, DANA Ltd, New Zealand (also part of Organising Committee)
Dennis Neilson is a Director of the New Zealand based forest industry consulting and publishing company, DANA Limited. Dennis has had previous experience as a Wood Supply and Export Marketing Manager for Fletcher Forests; and as a Manager and Director of a JV New Zealand- Japanese woodchip export company. He is presently a Director of a eucalyptus plantation- owning company.

For several years now, Dennis has been a co-author of the annual multi-client report entitled, “The International Pulpwood Resource and Trade Review”, - the 2007 edition is its 14th edition. He also has been the co-author of three editions of a major report on the Global Tree Farm and Managed Forest Industry, which is designed for international forest investors.

Dennis is one of the three organizers of this, the second International Pulpwood Resource and Trade Conference, after helping to organize, and speaking at the first meeting in Uruguay in 2005. He also speaks regularly at international meetings on forestry investment, wood supply and wood product issues.

Dennis travels regularly to keep up to date with industry and trade trends. In 2006 he visited 28 countries during five trips to research new trends and to assist DANA consulting and publishing clients identify wood resources and trade opportunities. These countries included the important Asian Woodfiber markets of China, Japan and Taiwan, as well as several important Northern, Central and Eastern European fibre importing countries; Australia, South Africa and Turkey.

Doug Parsonson, Poyry Forest Industry, Melbourne, Australia
Doug Parsonson is Principal of Pöyry Forest Industry Melbourne, Victoria.
Pöyry focuses on the management consulting area of the forest industry, providing advice to clients on business strategy, operations and process designed to enhance stakeholder value.

Doug graduated in 1978 from Australian National University with a BS in Forestry and has an MS in Natural Resource Management from the University of Minnesota. His area of expertise is international forest industry and fiber supply strategy.
Doug has done extensive work in the Forest Industry sector in the Americas, Asia Pacific, Europe and Russia.

Phuc Nguyen, Vietnam-Japan Chip Corporation, Vietnam
I’m Vietnamese and was born on January 1st, 1955. I graduated in 1979 from Agronomy and Forestry University of Hochiminh City.

I have held a number of forestry management positions in Forest Department of Quang Nam - Danang Province until 1992.

In 1993, I joined Vietnam - Japan Chip Corporation - VIJACHIP, a joint venture between SOJITZ Corporation of Japan and five Forestry Companies of Vietnam. VIJACHIP is one of biggest woodchip exporters in Vietnam and its woodchips have been used by OJI Paper Co. Ltd, Japan since 1994.

I’m in charge of afforestation works in VIJACHIP, this included some 13,000 hectares of Eucalyptus and Acacia plantations and the plan to establish another 13,000 hectares in the following years.

Juan Prados
Juan Prados Edwards is a Forest Engineer by the Madrid Polytechnic Institute, MBA by ESADE Business School and a Master Degree in Enology and Viticulture.

He has developed most of his professional career at the ENCE Group where he was Forestry Operations Manager and General Manager for Portugal. He is now Executive Partner at Expertos Forestales Agrupados being responsible for wood and biomass trading.

He also is member of the Board of the CEI-Bois (European Confederation of Woodworking Industries) and Chairman of the European initiative Living With Wood.

Fernando Raga, CMPC, Chile
Fernando Raga is 2nd Vice - Chairman of “Corporacion de la Madera, CORMA” (the Forest Industry Association of Chile), Vice President of Forest Development of Forestal Mininco (the forestry branch of the CMPC industrial group), and member of the Board of “Instituto Forestal” (Forestry Institute, a research organization belonging to the Agriculture Ministry of Chile). He has background in Economics, Engineering and Marketing, and a long experience both in the Chilean and Argentinean forestry sectors.

Gemmei (Jimmy) Shimamura, General Manager Wood Material Department,
& Deputy General Manager of Strategic Resource Management Division
Oji Paper Co., Ltd, Japan
Gemmei (Jimmy) Shimamura was born on January 1st 1953 in Japan, He studied at Forestry major at Kyusyu University in Japan.

Work career:

Join to Oji Paper ,1975

14 years overseas assignment which includes

3 years in the Sabah State in Malaysia as managing the chipping operation of
Japanese Venture.

5 years in the U.S. as a representative of Oji Paper for procuring woodchips from North America.

6 years in Albany Western Australia as managing director of a Japanese Venture plantation company (APFL; Albany Plantation Export Company) and founded new wood chip export company(APEC; Albany Plantation Export Company).

17 years domestic assignment which include working for three of Oji`s Japanese paper mills and head office.

Fred Staples, Pan Pac Forest Products, New Zealand
I have worked at Pan Pac in many roles across the company, for the last 33 years, starting shortly after the establishment of Pan Pac .

I have worked in most areas in the manufacturing divisions, including pulp operations, shipping, engineering, lumber operations and redevelopment, strategic planning, and currently managing fiber products which involves pulp and chip manufacture and sales.

Pan Pac pulp operations are a TMP pulp mill with capacity of up to 250,000 ADT per year. This is mostly exported to the shareholders in Japan. Output is anticipated to be at about 235,000 ADT next year.

Additionally Pan Pac has a chip export program nominally exporting 4 vessels a year to Japan, with swing volume up to 2 additional vessels.

Pan Pac is an integrated forest company, with 30,000Ha of sustainable producing Radiata forests yielding about 650,000 m3 of logs per year, providing the manufacturing mills about half of their logs. The saw logs are processed through a sawmill producing 300,000 m3 of lumber, 80% exported to the Northern Pacific..

Stephen Walker, Afforestation Manager for Midway Plantations Pty Ltd in Victoria
Mr Stephen Walker, Afforestation Manager for Midway Plantations Pty Ltd in Victoria, holds a Bachelor of Forest Science degree from The University of Melbourne. In 2005 he received a Masters of Business Administration through
Deakin University and the Australian National Business School.
Specialisation of the MBA emphasised trade between Asia and Australia including residential units at the INTI International College in Penang, Malaysia as part of AISAM 2004.

Stephen has been employed by several companies in eastern Australia, holding positions including Area Forester with Boral Timber Tasmania Ltd, Senior Forester for Forest Enterprises Australia Ltd and Forest Plantations Manager for the GRO Group in South-East Queensland. His current role involves responsibility for establishment and management of eucalypt plantations for Midway Pty Ltd and clients such as Macquarie Bank, Nippon Paper and Mitsui in South-East and Central Victoria.

In 2006, Stephen was selected for a J.W.Gottstein Fellowship to study India's wood based pulp and paper industry and to review opportunities for Australian exporters. It is anticipated that the information presented in his Gottstein report will make an important contribution to the state of knowledge in Australia regarding India as a market destination.

Grant Watkins, Fibreco Export Inc, Canada
R. Grant Watkins is President & C.E.O. of Fibreco Export Inc. Fibreco is an international wood fibre marketing company and also an operator of a deep sea terminal in North Vancouver.

In 2006 Fibreco handled over 400,000 tonnes of pellets for the European bioenergy market on behalf of the three major B.C. pellet producers. Fibreco also buys, sells, and handles wood chips for the B.C. and Asian pulp industries, with a volume of over 600,000 BDU per year.

Grant is a forest products executive with over 25 years experience in Canada’s forest products industry. He is a Registered Professional Forester as well as a Professional Engineer. Grant's background includes a M.B.A. from the University of Western Ontario and a B.S.F. (Eng.) from the University of Washington.

A native of Vancouver, B.C., Grant lives on Bowen Island with his wife and three children. Bowen is a small island approximately 12 miles away from the Fibreco terminal, connected by car ferry and a short drive.


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