Meet our Pine Tree Suppliers - HQPlantations
When choosing our pine tree suppliers, the most important factor is their commitment to protect and maintain the land and environment on which they operate.
This is why we source our trees from HQPlantations based in regional Queensland.
For every tree that is cut down another is planted. HQP raise approximately 10,000 million seedlings a year in their nursery, which are planted to replace the trees they harvest.
They also protect and enhance the native forest buffers that weave throughout their plantations and out into other state forests, national parks, defence reserves and private forests. These native forest buffers create wildlife corridors, protect watercourses, act as natural firebreaks and promote biodiversity within their plantations:
HQP safeguard the health and protection of native forest buffers by undertaking:
- Prescribed burning to achieve a balance between protecting and enhancing biodiversity values and protecting neighbouring communities and our plantation assets
- Weed and wildling management to maintain the integrity of the native forest
- Regular water quality testing
- Wildlife surveys.
Plantation productivity is a function of soil health and condition, together with other factors such as genetics, climate and pest and disease risk. The sustainability of our plantation estate in terms of growth is clearly and directly linked to the sustainability of land use practices.
To limit negative impacts on soil values, they:
- Plan and implement activities to account for soil properties, particularly erosion hazard and compaction potential
- Implement guidelines to reduce landslip risks on steep sites, including exclusion of harvesting where the risk is considered high
- Avoid concentrating machine activity or remediate compacted areas following harvest
- Implement harvest and site preparation systems that retain the majority of nutrient-rich organic material on site
- Account for fluctuating water tables and associated machine traffic so as to avoid operating on sites prone to water-logging
- Undertake fuel reduction burning that emphasises the need to retain the nutrient-rich duff layer above mineral soil.
We look forward to continuing to work with HQP to optimise the value of wood in a sustainable way.
