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Eucalyptus globulus: a noble wood from Galician planted forests (II)
Gustavo Iglesias Trabado 
GIT Forestry Consulting SL - Consultoría y Servicios de Ingeniería Agroforestal - www.git-forestry.com - EUCALYPTOLOGICS
GIT Forestry Consulting SL - Consultoría y Servicios de Ingeniería Agroforestal - www.git-forestry.com - EUCALYPTOLOGICS
After depicting how the Eucalyptus planted forests of Galicia in Northern Spain have yielded over 1500 million € to tree growers in the last cultivation cycle, and having seen how this renewable source of one of the best wood fibers in the world for papermaking is also able to source high value wood for complementary industrial lines, we took on a trip to the Arousa Mussel Empire to see how the industrial acquaculture of Galician seafood is built on Eucalyptus globulus beams, and why over 10,000 jobs in the fisheries sector would not exist without Eucalyptus plantations.
Today we will keep walking along the timber ecosystem to show you how plantation grown E. globulus logs become sawntimber, and how those solidwood products keep generating added value and jobs, besides unique organic, renewable, recyclable and environmentally friendly shapes, colours and textures: we will start exploring the nobility of Galician eucalypts.
Fig. 1: IFA President Dr. Peter Volker standing on plantation grown Tasmanian Blue Gum (Eucalyptus globulus) lumber grade logs at HVS Sawmill Woodyard (Galicia, Spain). The Tasmanian Floral Emblem has been milled for high value solidwood uses in Northern Spain for over 70 years. (Click image to enlarge)
It all starts with a wood log. That wonderful piece of a tree efficiently and naturally built from light, water and carbon recycled from soil and air. For the case of Northern Spain, such logs are sourced today from productive tree plantations established along the developing coastal Eucalyptus rainforest of Galicia during the 20th century. Wooden fruits of the tireless work of dozens of thousands of tree growers, landowners and silviculturalists, carried on voluntarily at their previously nearly treeless properties.
Fig. 2: Galician plantation grown Eucalyptus globulus high value lumber grade log entering the sawmilling process at HVS - Hijos de Vicente Suárez Sawmill to become solidwood eucalypt made slabs and planks. The adopted Australian wonder trees roughly mean 50% of Galicia's yearly timber harvests and 25% of Spain's yearly timber harvests. (Click image to enlarge)
After the ancient oak nearly disappeared, King's Oak that built treasure fleets and ships of the line many moons ago, it was the prime time of pine.
Portuguese Maritime pine (Pinus pinaster ssp. atlantica) the softwood that arrived (again) and spread (again) in man made forests along the Northern coast, roughly at the same time the same tree crop started in Aquitaine. And Galician sawmillers and timberjacks adapted to it before the Age of Steam.
It would take some time until a new hardwood arrived, von Mueller's Prince of Eucalypts and a bit more until its cultivation for industrial timber supply purposes became noticeable. But, again, Galician sawmillers and timberjacks adopted it and adapted to it, this time aided by machines. Galician Eucalyptus sawmills were born.
Fig. 3: Processing a plantation grown Galician Blue Gum log through HVS' bandsaw to obtain eucalypt wood slabs. After the initial cut the E. globulus slabs are reprocessed to obtain dimensional lumber. (Click image to enlarge)
Since then, plantation grown Eucalyptus trees have been a source of specialty lumber logs for conoisseurs. Their special timber properties, result of fast growing rates and competition for light, different to the same timber in its native forests, had to be learned an dealt with by experience in order to yield usable sawnwood with reasonable recovery rates.
Each log becomes a different world. Each wood cut a challenge. But it was done. Galician sawmillers and master carpenters, devoid of other easy locally sourced hardwood timber choices, succeeded where the Californian feverish Eucalyptus timber industry of the second Gold Rush era failed.
Fig. 4: Eucalyptus globulus reprocessed slabs become dimensional lumber after re-sawing and finishing ("recanteado"). Besides direct uses as structural wood for housing inland, part of this Eucalyptus dimensional lumber is used to build the frameworks of Galician "Bateas" (Mussel & Oyster Farms) in the ocean. (Click image to enlarge)
Timber knowledge passed from generation to generation of sawmillers, today's examples as Hijos de Vicente Suárez Blanco, join more than 50 years of experience based wisdom on Eucalyptus globulus sawmilling and handcraft carpentry. Thanks to them, and others like them, Master Shipbuilders as Manuel Sánchez Torrado keep building wooden structures at dockyards, for immediate use in acquaculture. Thanks to them, and others like them, further value adding happens in Galicia, as finished slabs are also transformed into fine timber products by other local industrial lines.
Fig. 5: Galician & Tasmanian sawmillers inspecting the finished product area of HVS sawmill, where plantation grown Eucalyptus globulus logs have been converted into high value sawn timber products for multiple uses. The organically grown and nearly handcrafted noble wood will keep generating added value after this step, for direct carpentry work and further industrial processing, to become many other Eucalyptus solidwood based products. (Click image to enlarge)
A whole economic ecosystem based on the most noble uses of timber has grown and flourished in the Northern coast of Iberia, at the same time the coastal Eucalyptus rainforest has developed.
Its flow of organic matter (wood fibres) runs up and down the industrial chains based on this timber, generating jobs at every stage for wood workers and their families. Generating wealth that is recirculated in rural economies and primary resource based economies along this man made timberbelt, the Nova Australia eucalypt planted forests.
Generating energy savings with each ton of standing timber, each ton of sawnwood and each ton of wood products you may or may not choose against other materials with mindbowling energy costs to be manufactured.
Fig. 6: The life cycle and CO2 storage lifetime of plantation grown Eucalyptus globulus timber used for building purposes ranks in the "well over 100 years" timespan in Galicia. Reclaimed and Fresh wood are used for fine grade building in both "old and new" styles, either as structural timber pieces or as unique visual treat. Fine carpentry expert examples, as Hijos de Vicente Suárez works, expand the possibilities for noble wood uses of Tasmanian Blue Gum timbers and the value adding process. (Click image to enlarge).
Same way as Eucalyptus virgin cellulosic fibres are recycled as paper is recycled creating a long term pool of stored CO2, and hence being an useful tool in the fight against climate change, Eucalyptus globulus solidwood products, for their longer lifetimes and continued recycling of uses once serving their primary prupose, are also a stored CO2 pool.
Each of these plantation grown eucalypt timber pieces contributes at once to slow down the harvest of native hardwood forests with high value for preservation in other areas of the world, which is a positive externality, and an example of positive environmental impact. Each solidwood piece contributes to more efficient energy saving processes for raw material production, as this wood is totally organic, and, as every type of wood, built by nature using solar energy, not by burning fossil fuels. Each Galician Blue Gum log and solidwood piece is a living proof of cultivated forests being capable of generating sustainable products and services, positive social impacts and positive environmental impacts. Remember that each time you may read eucalypt plantations are not sustainable, or that the "foreign trees" cannot bur harm your local ecosystems.
Acknowledgements
To Peter Volker (Forestry Tasmania), Glenn & Shawn Britton (Britton Timbers, Tasmania) and Tony Jaeger (McKay Timber, Tasmania) for stopping by in their discovery trip around the world after the Eucalyptus beyond Australia. To the Suárez siblings and their staff (Maderas Hijos de Vicente Suárez Blanco SL), Alfonso and his staff (Maderas Costiña SL) and Master Carpenter Manuel Sánchez and family (Astilleros Manuel Sanchez Torrado SL) for their hospitality and daily work at forest and sea. To Isabel Puentes (FEARMAGA - Galician Federation of Sawmillers and Timber Suppliers) and Juan Picos (Asociación Galega Monte - Industria) for their support and company during the Mussel Day. To the fishermen and seafood cultivators of Galicia, for making it possible. To the tree growers and silviculturalists of Galicia, for making it possible too. And, looking back to days past, let's not forget to thank Alfonso Ozores, Marquiss of Aranda and the House of Rubianes for thinking like a mussel. And let's not forget either to thank Rafael Areses, Forester and eucalypt planter extraordinaire, for thinking like a tree at the same time Navarro de Andrade did.
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