That is according to HOK, the global architecture and engineering firm leading the design for the three-storey, 57,000-square-foot building and an adjacent 350-bed forensic psychiatric hospital, both under construction on a campus being redeveloped as a centre of excellence for behavioural healthcare.

The administration building combines regionally sourced glulam columns and beams with cross-laminated timber decking — a structural approach rarely attempted in healthcare construction, where steel and concrete have long been the default.

Working alongside structural engineer KPFF Consulting Engineers to develop concealed proprietary connections and fasteners, HOK kept the exposed timber interior free of visible hardware…with several columns made from trees felled on-site.

Wood Central understands that the building is targeting LEED Gold certification and net-zero-energy readiness. Rooftop and site-mounted photovoltaic panels will generate on-site renewable energy, while advanced mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems — including thermal storage — are designed to reduce peak energy loads. Fritted-glass curtainwalls bring daylight into the building’s core and offer occupants views across the surrounding campus.

The ground floor includes training and gathering spaces open to the wider community — a conscious step away from the closed, institutional character that has defined state psychiatric facilities for generations. It comes as the broader $947 million Western State redevelopment — the largest capital project in Washington state history — pushes toward a 2028 opening. The forensic hospital is scheduled to begin receiving patients later that year.

Three product categories are under examination. Canadian softwood lumber faces review under antidumping order A-122-857 and countervailing duty order C-122-858 for all of calendar year 2025. Chinese certain hardwood plywood products — under antidumping order A-570-051 — and Chinese wooden bedroom furniture under order A-570-890 are included for the same period.

Commerce said it may limit the number of companies examined, selecting respondents through U.S. import data or quantity-and-value questionnaires. The data will be placed on the record within 5 days of the initiation notice, with respondent selection to follow within 35 days. For wooden bedroom furniture, quantity-and-value responses are due within 21 days; separate-rate certifications within 14 days.

The duty burden on Canadian exporters has risen sharply. Combined antidumping and countervailing rates climbed from 14.40 per cent under the fifth administrative review to 35.19 per cent under the sixth, and U.S. producers show no sign of backing off. Andrew Miller, chairman of the U.S. Lumber Coalition, said the duties target practices “designed by Canada to maintain an artificially inflated US market share for Canadian products and force US companies to curtail production, thereby killing US jobs.”

The Chinese furniture picture was equally difficult in 2025. The U.S. remains China’s largest wood furniture export market, absorbing 27 per cent of total shipments — but volumes fell 7.1 per cent to 129.4 million pieces, export value dropped 20 per cent to US$5.6 billion, and average unit prices declined 14 per cent to $43 per piece.

That is according to Nguyen Quoc Tri, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Environment, who said Hanoi is focused on “diversifying export markets,” reducing dependence on major trading partners, building the ‘Vietnamese Wood’ brand, and expanding forest environmental services and the carbon market.

It comes as Vietnam’s wood exports hit a record $18.5 billion in 2025, up 6.6 per cent year-on-year, with the US taking more than $8 billion of that total. The pressure is mounting: as Wood Central reported this week, the US Department of Commerce has slapped a preliminary 196 per cent antidumping duty on Vietnamese hardwood plywood — a rate higher than the one applied to China.

Nguyen Quoc Khanh, newly elected chairman of VIFOREST, says the reckoning is overdue. “The US is applying inconsistent tariff policies, whilst the EU market continues to struggle with economic slowdown,” he warned — stressing that unless the sector invests in green production and modern technology, the government’s US$25 billion export target by 2030 is in peril.

Japan is Vietnam’s fastest-growing major market.

Exports there surged 23 per cent in 2025 to $2.153 billion — making it Vietnam’s second-largest destination for the first time — with China close behind at $2.086 billion. The US, Japan and China together now account for 80 per cent of Vietnam’s total wood export value, with Canada quietly emerging as one of its most important new markets, particularly for bedroom furniture.

According to Phung Quoc Man, HAWA chairman, Canada, Europe, the Middle East and India have yet to impose tariffs on Vietnamese wood, a window Hanoi is now moving fast to exploit. Europe is already responding: exports to Spain jumped 63 per cent year-on-year as buyers scrambled to replace Chinese and Russian suppliers, with Germany also gaining ground under the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement.

Underpinning the entire push is a green transition that Vietnam is further ahead on than most observers realise. The country has already sold 10.3 million forest carbon credits to the World Bank, banking $51.5 million, with a domestic carbon trading exchange now live under Decree 29/2026.

So far more than 520,000 hectares of planted forest carry FSC certification — with the government targeting one million hectares by 2030, the compliance threshold European buyers now require under the EU Deforestation Regulation before they will sign a purchase order.

Introduced in Congress last week, Senators Chris Coons (from Delaware) and Jacky Rosen (of Nevada) put forward the Housing Tariff Exclusion Act, which would automatically exclude lumber, OSB, engineered wood products, cement, glass, insulation, plastics, adhesives, and stone products from President Trump’s current and future tariffs.

And for anything not covered by exemptions, the bill would direct the Secretary of Commerce to establish an expedited application process, providing importers a legitimate path to relief when domestic supply simply can’t fill the gap.

After the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s tariff powers under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the administration moved quickly to implement a new 10% global import tariff that took effect last week. And that levy landed squarely on construction materials, catching builders, dealers, and developers who had barely had time to process the court ruling.

“President Trump’s tariffs are making it more expensive to build homes in America, and it’s driving up the cost of housing for everyone,” Senator Coons said. “In a housing crisis, this is the last thing we should be doing.”

Senator Rosen was even more direct. “We know that one way to address the affordable housing crisis is by making it easier and cheaper for developers to build more housing — but Trump has done the complete opposite over the past year by imposing cost-raising tariffs on virtually all homebuilding materials,” she said. “The Supreme Court found many of his tariffs illegal, but it’s clear that he’ll use the many other tariff authorities at his disposal to continue imposing them.”

Wood Central understands that if passed, the legislation would apply to all tariffs implemented since January 19, 2025. It deliberately leaves long-standing anti-dumping and countervailing duties alone, meaning the existing AD/CVD orders on Canadian softwood lumber will remain in place.

More than 60% of builders are bleeding

The National Association of Home Builders, which worked directly with Rosen and Coons to shape the bill, didn’t mince words on the scale of the problem. As it stands, 60% of builders have already reported cost increases attributable to tariffs, which are being passed directly to buyers and renters.

Last year, Wood Central reported that NAHB members were budgeting for tariff-driven material cost increases of between US$7,500 and US$10,900 on a typical single-family build, before the latest levy was added. “This bill is an important step forward to create more certainty for American businesses and to address the nation’s housing affordability challenges,” said NAHB Chairman Bill Owens.

And there’s a structural problem that makes the tariff pain worse than it looks.

As it stands, more than 93% of U.S. homes use timber framing, and the country imports roughly 30% of the softwood lumber it consumes, with 85% of that coming from Canada alone.

That’s why NAHB has been warning for months that soaring Canadian lumber duties, now exceeding 35% before the new global tariff, were squeezing builders already battling high material and labour costs. Single-family housing starts fell nearly 7% in 2025 to 943,000, the weakest result since the pandemic recovery.

The lumber and building materials sector is united on this one

The National Lumber and Building Material Dealers Association, which had direct input into the bill’s scope, put its endorsement on the record immediately. “Lumber and building material dealers operate within a supply chain that depends on stable and predictable trade policy,” said Jonathan M. Paine, President and CEO of the NLBMDA.

“Tariffs on essential construction inputs have been shown to increase costs, create market volatility, and can delay or discourage new housing starts. By establishing a transparent and timely exclusion process for critical homebuilding materials, the Housing Tariff Exclusion Act will help stabilise prices, strengthen supply chains, and support the increased construction activity needed to improve housing affordability nationwide.”

David Dworkin, President and CEO of the National Housing Conference, said the legislation would lower building and preservation costs, reduce supply chain pressures, and ensure trade policy stops worsening the affordability crisis the sector is already trying to dig out from.

Other endorsers include Third Way, Up for Growth Action, Habitat for Humanity, Local Initiatives Support Corporation, and the Housing Assistance Council. The bill is co-sponsored by Senators Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Delaware), Tim Kaine (D-Virginia), Angela Alsobrooks (D-Maryland), Martin Heinrich (D-New Mexico), and Andy Kim (D-New Jersey).

• To learn more about the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Trump’s tariff powers and what it means for construction imports, click here for Wood Central’s special feature. To find out how engineered wood products bound for the U.S. are now caught in the new Section 122 surcharge, click here for Wood Central’s report from last week.

It comes after Iran’s Revolutionary Guard issued a warning on February 28 to every vessel in the Strait of Hormuz: the waterway was closing, and any ship attempting to pass would be set “ablaze.” By the following morning, traffic was down 80%…with the strait closed to all vessels on Monday.

As it stands, 170 containerships carrying 450,000 TEU, 1.4% of the global container fleet, are stranded inside the strait with no clear path out, according to Linerlytica co-founder Hua Joo Tan.

All four of the world’s largest container shipping operators have suspended operations. Maersk has formally invoked Clause 20 of its Bill of Lading — a force majeure provision — implementing an Emergency Freight Increase across all cargo to and from the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, and Oman.

The current crisis is structurally different from anything the world has faced before. When Houthi attacks forced vessels off the Suez route in 2024, the Cape of Good Hope was painful but passable. However, a Hormuz closure removes the destination, leaving no available detour.

What is at stake in the Gulf

The MENA region has, in recent years, become one of the most important and consequential growth markets for timber exporters. Last year, Wood Central reported that Russia shipped 1.7 million cubic metres of lumber there in 2024, whilst the American Hardwood Export Council has successfully grown trade in the United Arab Emirates (up 27%), Saudi Arabia (up 8%) and Egypt (up 15%) on the back of major projects in the region.

However, that pipeline is now stalled at the port gate.

“The Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz and adjacent waters are the most dangerous place right now for commercial shipping,” according to Jakob Larsen, BIMCO’s Chief Safety and Security Officer, who spoke to Fox News on Sunday. “Ships in the Persian Gulf are under threat from Iranian attacks — they’re trying to depart to get away from the threat zone.”

It is a pattern that timber exporters have felt before.

During last June’s 12-day Israel-Iran war, Mike Cardin, of Tennessee-based Cardin Forest Products, was one of scores of traders who had rerouted Gulf-bound hardwood shipments. “If it keeps escalating, there won’t be any orders coming in for the next, who knows how long,” he told Fox Business at the time. Whilst his brother Jarrod was more blunt: “Right now, no one knows what’s going to happen. It’s shut down that export market pretty much. It’s a little painful — we’re stuck with warehouses full.”

That conflict passed within two weeks…but this one could drag on much longer.

Finland, Russia, and the wider exposure

The current disruption reaches beyond Gulf-facing exporters. “Approximately 20% of the forest industry’s exports go to Asia, and the majority of those shipments pass through the Suez Canal,” said Maarit Lindström, Director and Chief Economist at the Finnish Forest Industries Federation. If vessels are forced to reroute around southern Africa, journeys extend by thousands of kilometres — delays of several weeks are possible.

“If the situation continues, it will affect freight prices and competition for containers,” Lindström warned. Of Finland’s Asian exports, roughly half is pulp, with wood products accounting for 26%, cartonboard 15%, and paper 8% — all product lines now facing extended transit times and tightening container availability. Finland exports approximately €3 million worth of forest products to Qatar alone each year.

Until last week, freight markets were recovering after two years of major instability in the region. A Red Sea return in late 2026 had been one of the few tailwinds analysts were counting on — lower rates, shorter transit times, freed-up capacity. “The repercussions of the joint military operation will see the further weaponisation of trade and shatter hopes of a large-scale return of container shipping to the Red Sea in 2026,” said Peter Sand, chief analyst at Xeneta.

And there is a second cost that the mainstream has largely missed. QatarEnergy halted production following attacks on its facilities, sending gas prices up 50% in two days. With the Strait carrying 22% of global LNG, Asian based sawmills running on gas could face an energy cost spike on top of the freight hit.

When International Paper closed its mills in Liberty and Chatham counties last year, regional demand fell by 3 million tonnes, and nearly 1,655 jobs disappeared seemingly overnight. Pulpwood that fetched US$15–16 a tonne before the closures now sells for US$5–6. As a result, demand, as of January, is down 60 per cent.

As a result, the economics have turned against landowners.

The average pulpwood price before International Paper’s exit was US$1,125 per acre. Last month it was US$375. “It costs about $350 to get an acre replanted,” according to Shane Harrelson, owner of Ohoopee Land and Timber in Vidalia, who spoke to local media over the weekend. “So to timber land owners, it doesn’t seem to make sense anymore.”

It’s that kind of mathematics that brought Georgia’s timber leaders to a summit in Midway  — looking for markets that paper and pulp can no longer provide.

Al Williams, state representative and Liberty County Development Authority Chair, said debt is pushing some to bankruptcy. “It’s devastating. If you own $2 million worth of equipment and you’re not hauling any logs… That’s scary.”

Joe Hopkins, CEO of Toledo Manufacturing and a landowner, was blunt. “We’re barely breaking even.” Whilst Steve Strickland, vice president of Beach Timber Inc. and owner of two pole mills, watched raw material supply evaporate.

“If you have 1,000 trees in that stand of timber, about 10% of that is going to be straight enough to make poles out of,” he said. “The other 900 trees that aren’t being harvested don’t have a mill anymore, so nothing is being cut.” A third mill he owns sits closed. “With the market in such bad shape, we have no current plans to bring it back online without major capital investment.”

Harrelson — whose business sold only 5% of its wood to International Paper — was nearly sunk by the paper giant’s collapse anyway. His company was shifting a maximum of 30 loads in the first two weeks after the closure.  “A year ago, I was selling 90 to 100 loads a week,” he said. “(But) if we were to sell under 40 loads a week for four to six weeks, we wouldn’t be able to keep going.”

But instead of despairing, Harrelson pivoted, harvesting mixed tracts of soft pine and hardwood across different species to reach different product markets. “It got him me back to 60 to 65 loads a week,” he said.

The December summit became as much a therapy session for embattled business owners as a venue for solutions. House Majority Leader Jon Burns, one of Georgia’s largest timber farmers, focused on the enormous opportunities in sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) with local producers responding to new European mandates to progressively lift SAF content in aviation blends.

A Model T that’s been running for 90 years vs a brand-new F-250.

However, Burns was candid about many of the obstacles. Europe blocks chemically treated wood from American mills, he said, and the unstable tariff situation makes US wood uncompetitive. “SAF also competes against cooking oil and municipal waste for feedstock — Georgia doesn’t own this market outright.”

“We can support our existing businesses,” Georgia Forestry Commission executive director Tim Lowrimore told state lawmakers. “But we also have the capacity to do more. To get where we want to be, you, as state leaders, have to be committed.”

Mass timber was another idea that gained traction. According to Byrnn Grant, CEO of LCDA, it’s more eco-friendly than steel or concrete, and far more durable than particleboard. Whilst Patrick Shay, architect from Gunn Meyerhoff Shay Architects, told the room that timber-based floor slabs can remove the need for a concrete pour, cutting time and cost.

“Georgia is uniquely positioned,” Marshall Thomas, president of F&W Forestry Services, recently told a state Senate study committee. “We can add jobs and tax base and position Georgia as a leader in the transition to a green economy.”

Amongst the roadblocks is the age of machinery and its equivalent. Seven of Georgia’s eight remaining pulp mills were built before 1961. “Brazil, China, and Indonesia are building brand new, state-of-the-art mills, and we’re running mills built in 1936,” one figure said.

“It’s a Model T that’s been running for 90 years vs to a brand-new Ford F-250.”

Tan Peng Juan, president of the Malaysian Timber Association, told the Daily Express Malaysia that he had serious concerns over attempts by the European Union and the United States to propose the inclusion of tropical timbers under Appendix II of CITES at the 20th Conference of the Parties (CoP20). Those proposals were ultimately not tabled, but he said it has sent the Malaysian industry scrambling to prepare for what many expect will be a second attempt.

Shorea species, traded as meranti, seraya and balau, underpin Malaysia’s tropical timber value chain and are processed into sawn wood, veneer sheets, panels and plywood. And whilst an Appendix II listing would not ban the trade outright, it would impose new permit requirements, documentation and compliance costs, enough to dramatically slow the flow of Shorea-based products into markets at a time when the industry is already being squeezed.

In a letter to Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability Minister Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad last year — written by then-MTA president George Yap  — the association warned that “CITES regulations must also consider socio-economic impacts” and pledged to assist the government in preparing “technical and socio-economic counterarguments” while rallying support from regional bodies.

That letter also pointed out that “deforestation in Malaysia is driven by multiple factors, including urban development and population growth, rather than timber production alone,” describing the EU and US approach as disproportionate and urging Malaysia to present “a compelling case against the broad-brush proposal.”

It comes as Wood Central reported last year that Malaysia’s timber sector was already being hit from three sides — a domestic Sales and Service Tax (SST) that has pushed operational costs up by an estimated 8–12%, Trum’s tariffs dampening export volumes, and the since delayed (and water downed) EUDR resulting in a compliance quagmire for traders into global markets.

At the time, Deputy Minister of Plantation and Commodities, Datuk Chan Foong Hin, told more than 400 attendees at a Timber Exporters’ Association of Malaysia (TEAM) event: “Although export products aren’t directly taxed, rising production costs are starting to erode Malaysia’s long-standing export strength.”

The CITES proposal adds an entirely new layer.

Wood Central understands that the push to list Shorea is not driven solely by conservation. In March last year, the US-based Hardwood Federation wrote to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lobbying for both Shorea and Apitong to be added to the CITES list — arguing that “protecting Apitong is crucial for environmental conservation and maintaining international trade sustainability.”

However, the real aim, according to the Malaysians, was to promote American Red oak as a potential replacement for Southeast Asian imports in a variety of local industries, including the US military supply chain.

Wong Kar Wai, treasurer of TEAM, was direct about it at the Export Furniture Exhibition 2025. “Keruing is a special type of timber primarily used for floorboards, with the US being its main market. A major buyer is the US military, which uses Keruing for the flooring of trucks and tanks due to its durability and strength,” Wong told SunBiz. “However, the US is now looking to rely more on its local timber, particularly Red oak.”

“As a result, there are discussions about placing Keruing under CITES, which could further restrict its trade and impact exporters, particularly from Malaysia,” he said — adding that “despite being sustainably harvested and certified, Shorea and Apitong face potential trade restrictions under the guise of conservation.”

Last year, Wood Central reported that the US Department of Defence had already developed a Red oak-based trailer decking prototype to replace Keruing, whilst the National Defence Authorisation Act had already classified Apitong as endangered and called for a transition to domestically sourced alternatives. “The timber sector now faces two major threats — tariffs and the potential CITES listing — which could severely impact trade,” Wong said.

• To read more about the impact of tariffs, taxes and CITES on Malaysia’s timber trade, click here for Wood Central’s special feature. For more on how the CITES ruling could drive up timber prices for Australian consumers, click here.

Led by George H. Berghorn, Modular Mass Timber for Housing Construction, a new research published in the Mass Timber Construction Journal set out to model the critical success factors behind Modular Mass Timber (MMT) adoption in US housing projects.

The team conducted a systematic literature review and semi-structured interviews with industry experts, identifying 15 factors — 7 from published research and 8 from practitioners. Before then, put the lot through Total Interpretive Structural Modelling and MICMAC analysis to determine which factors drive the system and which depend on everything else falling into place.

The findings are blunt.

Sustainability and logistics sit at the top of the hierarchy as the dominant drivers. Time, quality and efficiency sit at the base –  foundational, but only activated when the upstream factors are functioning. In short: get your supply chain and carbon story right, or the factory floor advantages of modular mass timber never reach the building site.

“The research aims to identify, evaluate, and model the Critical Success Factors that influence MMT adoption in housing projects in the United States,” according to George H. Berghorn, Kaustubh Thakare and MG Matt Syalthe, who said the findings “offer practical insights to facilitate scalable, cost-effective, and environmentally sustainable housing solutions.”

According to Mass Timber Construction Journal, the research “maps the real drivers behind adoption, not the hype,” and that housing “needs speed, cost control, and carbon discipline” — all of which modular mass timber can deliver, “but only if the industry treats adoption as a system problem, not a product swap.”

Wood Central understands that the research also delivers a strategic implementation guide aimed at developers, designers, manufacturers, and policymakers—a framework for deciding where to allocate effort and capital first. It’s the kind of applied output the sector has been short on whilst the conference circuit continues to celebrate landmark buildings.

For more information: Berghorn, G., Thakare, K., & Syal, M. (2026). Modular Mass Timber for Housing Construction. Mass Timber Construction Journal, 9(1), 1-16. Retrieved from https://www.journalmtc.com/index.php/mtcj/article/view/48.

Starting from later today — March 2, 2026, the date the notice was published in the Federal Register — US Customs and Border Protection will begin suspending liquidation and collecting cash deposits at the applicable rates after Commerce found that hardwood and decorative plywood from China was sold in the United States at less than fair value between October 2024 and March 2025.

The duties land on top of the 81.34% preliminary countervailing duties Commerce announced in January, according to the Coalition for Fair Trade in Hardwood Plywood, meaning Chinese plywood now faces combined preliminary duties of around 267%.

“This decision by the Department of Commerce is another critical step in levelling the playing field for American hardwood and decorative plywood manufacturers,” according to Timothy C. Brightbill, lead counsel to the Coalition and co-chair of Wiley’s International Trade Practice. “The domestic industry has been harmed for decades by dumped and subsidised hardwood and decorative plywood.”

Commerce also made a preliminary finding of critical circumstances for the China-wide entity, which means duties will be collected retroactively on affected unliquidated entries made on or after December 2, 2025, 90 days before publication of the notice.

Wood Central understands that the China-wide entity includes Linyi Evergreen Wood Co., Ltd. and Xuzhou Shelter Import and Export Co., Ltd., among other non-responsive producers and exporters. Commerce said it relied on adverse inferences after the selected respondents failed to respond to its antidumping questionnaire — a move that effectively guaranteed the highest possible duty rate.

But if Chinese plywood has all but vanished from the US market, the question is: where is it all coming from now?

Vietnam and Indonesia step in

Last year, Wood Central reported extensively that China had been using “friendly actor” countries — particularly Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaysia — to circumvent federal antidumping laws and funnel huge volumes of plywood into the US supply chain. That pattern is now embedded in the data.

As it stands, the United States imported about 3.23 million cubic metres of hardwood plywood in 2025 — up 20% year-on-year — with Vietnam supplying up to 30% of the total share, or 980,000 cubic metres (up 33%), and Indonesia shipping 891,000 cubic metres (up 40%), or 28%. Together, the two countries now account for nearly 60% of all hardwood plywood entering the US — a market China once dominated.

And whilst Chinese trade has declined, Malaysia and Thailand posted the fastest growth among the top suppliers, with volumes rising 65% to 133,000 cubic metres and 70% to 108,000 cubic metres, respectively. Cambodia delivered 171,000 cubic metres (up 22%), Finland surged 186% to 84,000 cubic metres, and Italy rose 112% to 66,000 cubic metres. Canada slipped 17% to 183,000 cubic metres, Spain fell sharply — down 64% to 96,000 cubic metres — and Russia shipped 178,000 cubic metres, up 3%.

By species, birch plywood totalled 1.71 million cubic metres, followed by non-tropical hardwood plywood at 1.17 million cubic metres and tropical plywood at 332,000 cubic metres. Over the period 2019–2025, annual import volume ranged from 2.71 million cubic metres in 2024 to a peak of 5.30 million cubic metres in 2021 during the COVID-era construction boom, with the average import price moving from US$439 per cubic metre in 2020 to US$743 last year.

Now, Vietnam and Indonesia are also in the firing line

And that’s exactly where the next battle is being fought. Commerce didn’t just go after China — it set preliminary dumping margins of 19.98% to 84.94% on Indonesian imports and a punishing 196.14% on Vietnamese imports, a rate even higher than China’s. Those duties add to the countervailing duties announced in January, which ranged from 2.40% to 128.66% for Indonesia and 4.37% to 26.75% for Vietnam.

The Coalition for Fair Trade in Hardwood Plywood — whose members include Columbia Forest Products, Commonwealth Plywood, Manthei Wood Products, States Industries, and Timber Products — filed its petition in May 2025, alleging dumping margins as high as 474% for China. The US International Trade Commission sided with the domestic industry in July last year, finding a reasonable indication that imports from all three countries were materially injuring US producers.

Commerce plans to issue its final determination for China by May 10, 2026, after which the ITC will decide whether the US industry was materially injured. Final determinations for Indonesia and Vietnam are expected by mid-July 2026. If both Commerce and the ITC reach affirmative final determinations, antidumping and countervailing duty orders will be issued for a minimum of five years.

With China’s volumes already at rock bottom, the real question now is what happens to the nearly 1.9 million cubic metres flowing in from Vietnam and Indonesia — the two countries that stepped in to fill the gap and are now squarely in Commerce’s crosshairs.

• To learn more about the flood of plywood from China, Indonesia, and Vietnam entering the US supply chain, click here for Wood Central’s special feature.

The paper, A National Pathway for High-Productivity Forestry and Renewable Carbon Supply, argues Australia can rebuild its wood supply by getting more from existing plantations — before turning to expansion.

Authored by forestry strategist Steve Walker, Principal of Terrafolia Advisory, it is supported by Professor Mark Brown of the University of the Sunshine Coast’s Forest Research Institute, Dr Lyndall Bull, Director and Principal Consultant at Lynea Advisory, and Dr Rob Waterworth, CEO of FLINTPro, Co-Director of Moja Global and CEO of Mullion Group.

Today, Wood Central spoke to Walker and Dr Bull — formerly of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations — about the growing opportunity to align what Australia’s plantations produce and what the country needs.

The numbers tell the story.

Australia’s plantation estate — the backbone of the country’s structural timber supply — has hit a 20-year low, largely fuelled by the ongoing conversion of hardwood plantations to other land uses. Last year, the Australian Forest Products Association warned that Australia was importing over $6 billion worth of wood products, 25 per cent of which was used to produce timber for housing.

“That divergence is not simply a land-use story — it is a national portfolio performance story,” Walker said.

The productivity opportunity is significant.

Australian plantations typically produce 15 to 18 cubic metres per hectare per year. The best international systems — using modern genetics, clonal propagation, precision silviculture and site-matched species — routinely deliver 30 to 50 cubic metres. Dr Bull, who has worked on forest product market development across Asia-Pacific and global supply chain policy, said the opportunity was well understood internationally, but the pathway for closing it right here in Australia had not been clearly set out…until now.

The paper puts forward three pathways.

The first is to do more with the existing harvest. That means lifting recovery, expanding engineered wood processing and pulling higher-value products from small-diameter logs and residues.

The second is to deploy what the paper calls Next Generation Perennial Plantations, or NGPP. The system applies precision genetics and silviculture to existing species and landscapes to lift productivity two to three times on suitable sites. “NGPP is not a new species or crop,” Walker said. “It can be deployed without major land-use change or within integrated agricultural landscapes.”

Whilst the third is targeted expansion — but only once productivity gains and secure offtake are in place.

The potential is substantial. According to Walker, a 50,000-hectare NGPP estate operating at two to three times current productivity could supply one to two million tonnes of biomass each year. That would support major renewable carbon facilities, strengthen engineered wood capability and displace high-emission industrial inputs.

In dollar terms, that represents more than $100 million in fibre revenue and also represents $200 to $300 million in regional value-added per year. And more than one million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent avoided.

The white paper lands at a key moment for Australia’s plantation sector.

In January, Wood Central reported that a new ABARES productivity report had confirmed plantation managers were already lifting output. Softwood mean annual increment has been holding steady or showing moderate increases over the past 15 to 20 years. Those gains were driven by improved silviculture, advances in genetics and better harvesting and processing practices.

But where the ABARES report described steady gains within the existing system, the Rozetta white paper goes further. It argues that step-change improvements are both technically feasible and commercially necessary — especially if Australia wants to meet rising demand without relying solely on estate expansion.

Scaling NGPP will require coordinated leadership across government, industry and investment. The paper proposes a staged roadmap: pilots first, then regional scale-up, then national deployment. The aim is to align plantation productivity with emerging clean-industry precincts, renewable carbon demand and advanced timber manufacturing.

Walker said forestry was increasingly part of energy transition portfolios, industrial decarbonisation strategies and sovereign manufacturing capability: “That evolution requires integrated thinking across biology, logistics, processing and capital — not just hectares,” he said.

Please note: Wood Central will have further coverage about the report in the coming weeks.