CULTIVATED EUCALYPT FORESTS GLOBAL MAP 2008 (v 1.0)
& Dennis WilstermannGIT Forestry Consulting - Consultoría y Servicios de Ingeniería Agroforestal - www.git-forestry.com - EUCALYPTOLOGICS
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(A larger 1280 x 1024 higher quality version is available upon request)
EUCALYPTOLOGICS brings you today as part of our Global Resource Maps a visual summary of the key statistics for Eucalyptus based cultivated forests around the world. If you are in need for an answer to the question "how many planted hectares of Eucalyptus have been established?", be it at a global level or for a particular country, this resource is expected to be useful to you.
GIT Forestry Consulting's Cultivated Eucalypt Forests Global Map 2008 has been ellaborated in collaboration with Mr. Dennis Wilstermann (University of Hamburg), after an intensive bibliographic research involving the forestry databases and publications of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO-Forestry), the most updated statistics from National Forestry Inventories of several key countries, and the kind input of different organisations or individuals with expertise in Eucalyptus forestry research and development around the world.
EUCALYPTUS, GLOBAL FORESTRY RESOURCE
A very dynamic primary resource of increasing strategic importance at a global level, Eucalyptus cultivated forests yield increasingly important amounts of raw materials for growers and industry alike in five continents.
Be it for its importance as a source of renewable energy resources (firewood & biomass), recyclable and renewable virgin fibers (pulp & paper industry), durable and environmentally friendly solid wood products (composite board, structural timber, veneer, furniture, etc.), unique products particularly associated to these trees (Eucalyptus oils, kino tannins, nectar and honey, etc); or be it for its importance to yield positive externalities (carbon sequestration, phytoremediation via salinity control, phytoremediation via rhizofiltering, auxilliary design tools for agroforestry systems, etc), Eucalyptus cultivated forests have followed a spectacular growth trend since their first cultivation out of Australia 235 years ago.
"Australia's most dramatic export" was how the then Australian Minister for External Affairs, Mr. R. G. Casey (now Lord Casey) described the eucalypt when welcoming forestry experts from 24 countries to Australia in 1952. Mr. Casey's phrase was well chosen, for no single tree has ever been so widely propagated throughout the world as the pungent smelling evergreen eucalypt.
The current boom in eucalypt planting abroad is likely to continue unabated in a world that is belatedly aware of how prodigal it has been with its forests in the past. What is the explanation of the eucalypt's extraordinary ubiquity? It is not the best tree in the world -if such a thing exists- but it is possibly the best all-round general purpose tree.
Dal Stivens, 1962
Half a century after the insight of these words, the state of the art and the current trends for global Eucalyptus cultivated forests prove these words not just truthful, but yet valid today.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to express their gratitude to the following individuals and organisations who have kindly contributed to the development of the Global Eucalyptus Map 2008 due to their past and ongoing work and subsequent information transfer to the general public, or through direct inputs and expert opinions during the ellaboration stage:
ABTCP - Associação Brasileira Técnica de Celulose e Papel (BRA); ABRAF - Associação Brasileira de Produtores de Florestas Plantadas (BRA); ACIAR - Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (AUS); Aslan, Mustafa (TUR); Ball, James (FAO); Balmelli, Gustavo (UY); Barr, Christopher (IND); Battaglia, Michael (AUS); BRS - Bureau of Rural Sciences, Government of Australia (AUS); CIFOR - Center For International Forestry Research (IND) ; Carle, James (FAO); Carrero, Omar (VEN); Del Lungo, Alberto (FAO); EUCAGEN - International Eucalyptus Genome Consortium (RSA); Evans, Julian (UK); Flynn, Robert (USA); FAO - Department of Forestry, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (ITA); Foelkel, Celso (BRA); Henson, Michael (AUS); INFOR - Instituto Forestal (CL); INTA - Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria de la República Argentina (ARG); Ipinza, Roberto (CL); Koch, Nicholas (USA); Malca, Óscar (PER); MGAP - Dirección General Forestal del Ministerio de Ganadería, Agricultura y Pesca de la República Oriental del Uruguay (UY); Midgley, Stephen (AUS); Myburg, Zander (RSA); Naing Oo, Thaung (MYA); Picos, Juan (SPA); Pou, Rosario (UY); Purse, John (UK); Rockwood, Donald (USA); SAGPyA - Secretaría de Agricultura, Ganadería, Pesca y Alimentos de la República Argentina (ARG); Sánchez Acosta, Martín (ARG); Silva, R. (FAO); Tomé, Margarida (POR); Turnbull, John (AUS); von Gadow, Klaus (GER); Wang, Huoran (CN); Wei, Run-Peng (HK); Whiteman, Adrian (FAO); Wilcox, Michael (NZ);
Participate
Estimating global statistics for forestry resources is never an easy task. And any map summarising those statistics can only be as accurate as the original data are. Forestry inventory processes are very heterogeneous around the world, and updated results are not always available for a certain country at a given time. Hence, caution when reviewing these estimations is always necessary, as they just depict an approximate frame of an ongoing dynamic process.
If you get access to your own or third party useful updated statistics on Eucalyptus cultivation anywhere in the world, we are more than grateful to welcome you to participate in the ongoing chart production of further updated versions of GIT Forestry Consulting's Global Eucalyptus Map. We are just one email away!
More Global Resource Maps in EUCALYPTOLOGICS...
Contact GIT Forestry Consulting - Eucalyptologics
GIT's Eucalyptology Topics
Posted by Joe, Salt Spring Island on 9/9/2008, 9:41 am, in reply to "Global Eucalyptus Map 2008 - Cultivated forests worldwide"
ReplyDeleteOur island is full of Eucalyptus trees in public and private gardens. I grow a couple of dozen species where I live. I know Ian in Washington state has dozens of species. Some of my trees even self seed. Cheers, Joe
Posted by Gus on 9/9/2008, 2:47 pm, in reply to "Excellent"
ReplyDeleteThanks Joe! Shall check the other forum! Many good examples of several species adapting quite well to the climates there in the PNW (of course, the milder, the better, as anywhere else!) come from people like you, Ian, Barrie, Frank, George, Vlad, Roger, Brian, and the so very long list of people who have trialled them to some extent in your area of the world.
There are surely climates in the PNW that do not allow Eucalyptus cultivation at all, but others do, sometimes the cold hardiest species only, other times more "mild" species. Yours there at SSI is quite a benign one :-)
Posted by Ian, Sequim WA on 9/9/2008, 11:40 am, in reply to "Global Eucalyptus Map 2008 - Cultivated forests worldwide"
ReplyDeleteVery cool. It looks like the United States has some catching up to do. What is our problem anyways??? Maybe we're still bitter about E. globulus and E. camaldulensis not working out.
Posted by Gus on 9/9/2008, 2:36 pm, in reply to "Re: Global Eucalyptus Map 2008 - Cultivated forests worldwide"
ReplyDeleteHey Ian :-)
An interesting amount of those plantations or those industries based on processing their production, especially in America, belong (partially or totally) to corporations based in the USA. You are there also :-)
And for the USA, in the areas where commercial Eucalyptus growing would be more reasonable (PNW, HI, CA, FL & the South East in general), different factors have an influence "against", and in some cases it is reasonable. Maybe things change in the short term, thanks to cellulosic ethanol.
Posted by Brandt--San Diego on 9/9/2008, 1:49 pm, in reply to "Global Eucalyptus Map 2008 - Cultivated forests worldwide"
ReplyDeleteInteresting to see that India is #1 (even higher than Australia, which is a distant #4)! By the way, shouldn't more of Chile be colored green (for eucalyptus growth territory)? If NYC and coastal Norway are (barely) green, then certainly more of Chile should be...
Posted by Gus on 9/9/2008, 2:19 pm, in reply to "Re: Global Eucalyptus Map 2008 - Cultivated forests worldwide"
ReplyDeleteHey Brandt :-)
The map refers to "man made forests", commercial plantations, mostly for timber. Australia has joined the trend in high numbers just recently (1995 onwards). However, the acreage of "natural forests" in Australia including Eucalyptus as main or secondary species is surely bigger than all you see in this map.
I think your comment on "the biological Southern border" is very useful, maybe not just for Chile but for Argentina also. What latitude would you suggest?
Posted by Brandt--San Diego on 9/10/2008, 2:05 am, in reply to "Re: Global Eucalyptus Map 2008 - Cultivated forests worldwide"
ReplyDeleteFirst, according to this abstract/article...
Most of Chile's euc plantations are between 34 and 41 deg S--makes sense since that's far enough south for decent rainfall and far enough north to have a Mediterranean climate.
The southern end of where Eucs can grow in Chile may very well have to do with the overall average temperatures versus the absolute minimums since zone 9 extends quite a ways south--at least to 45 deg S along the coast, if not further. Take Puerto Aisen, Chile as an example--a zone 9a climate at 45 deg S, but the average annual temperature is only 47F/8C, with the warmest summer month averaging only 56F/13C (about 6F/3C degrees higher than a typical timberline warmer summer month average). I'd think that snow gums would do very well in Puerto Aisen, and probably the eucs that grow in places like the Washington/British Columbia coast would be able to grow there. It rains all the time in Puerto Aisen though--over 100 in (2.5 m) per year!
In Argentina, this link says that eucs are cultivated south to the provinces of La Pampa (35-39 deg S) and Buenos Aires (34-40 deg S). Eucs probably do fine along the coast down at least to around 41 deg S--Carmen de Patagones at that latitude (just slightly inland) is zone 9a and has an impressively high (for its latitude) average annual temperature of 59F/15C! The average high in its coldest month, July, is 47F/8C...easily mild enough for eucs. Trelew (43 deg S) and even Comodoro Rivadavia (46 deg S and zone 9a!) are just slightly colder overall, so I wouldn't be surprised to see eucs there.
Disclaimer: This is based strictly on weather data (and a bit of googling). The furthest south that I've been in Argentina is Buenos Aires (where, of course, there are eucs--and lots and lots of tipu trees!), and I've yet to visit Chile (though I plan to go sometime in the next 2-3 years).
Posted by Gus on 9/10/2008, 9:15 am, in reply to "Re: Global Eucalyptus Map 2008 - Cultivated forests worldwide"
ReplyDeleteThank you very much Brandt. Your inputs are very valuable, and they will be added to the Version 1.1 of the map and properly acknowledged. Essentially, the current one depicts the current approximate latitudinal limits of sizeable commercial plantations or trials for that part of the world.
I agree that the biological limits for survival of some of the cold hardiest eucalypts could well be more to the South, and Puerto Aisén and Comodoro sound benign enough for a number of them. Weather and climatic data are very good indicators, it is comparison of those and geologic and soil type data what has been behind many "low risk" introductions of eucalypts as crops worldwide.
The cities you well mention would be close to the hypothetical places where the "Southernmost flowering eucalypt" could stand (today or tomorrow, and with the permission of plant growers at Invercargill!), at least for a time, if microclimate is favourable. For that geographic prize however, "plant hunting evidence" is needed.