Ancient Canadian forests at risk from Kiwi importers

Canadian forestry expert Ken Wu is in New Zealand on a nationwide tour explaining that imported cedar must come from certified sources to protect ancient British Columbia specimens.

Cedar is the Canadian equivalent of New Zealand’s kauri. Some forests are 2000 years old, and it makes up about one-third of sawn timber imports, with most of it from old-growth forests.

The hard cedar requires little treatment as a fashionable cladding, although for general construction builders rely more on cheaper plywood and pine treated with chromated copper arsenic.

Wu said importers can identify sustainably harvested cedar, which is certified by the international Forest Stewardship Council. The council sponsored Wu to a Living Future Institute conference in Auckland, and forums in Wellington and Christchurch to talk about cedar imports.

Another forum attendee, Jerome Pardington of Jasmax Architects, said there was ‘‘a bit of a hierarchy’’ when it came to sustainable building materials.

The most toxic were chromated copper arsenic-treated products. Cross-laminated timber was generally less toxic because it was treated with boron, while cedar and heat-treated pine were the least toxic.

Jasmax had vetted more than 750 sustainable materials for the Te Kura Whare building near Whakatane, Pardington said.

Another alternative to chemically treated wood, or cedar, was heat-treated pine, used by Abodo Wood founder Daniel Gudsell. He also attended the timber industry roadshow.

Gudsell has used the heattreated pine from Rotorua forests for clients building homes at the Jack’s Point subdivision near Queenstown.

Gudsell said it was tough in the hot and cold climate and an aesthetically pleasing alternative to imported Canadian cedar cladding, popular for new houses in the Queenstown area.

His company now exports heattreated wood to numerous countries and has won environmental awards.

Gudsell said Abodo’s methods fitted with the Government’s goal of planting 1 billion trees between 2018 and 2027.

But he said the goal should focus on naturally durable species redwood, totara, eucalyptus, Douglas fir and ma¯ nuka, as well as pine.

The FSC forum, sponsored by many industry suppliers, was held on March 19 in Auckland and the Living Futures Roadshow in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch from March 26 to 28.