The dam and recreation area provide the backdrop for some fine sawlogs.
While a number of municipal plantations around KZN appear to be falling into disrepair under inexperienced and inefficient management, the Vryheid municipal plantation is bucking the trend and flourishing in the hands of a no-nonsense ‘caretaker’ lessee who was raised on the farm and has a special interest in its future.
In 2020 Hendrick Mbatha secured a three-year lease to operate the 680 ha estate, located just outside Vryheid, which is owned by the Abaqulusi Municipality. It includes a scenic dam which provides the town with fresh water, as well as several hundred hectares of pine, wattle and gum.
Hendrick grew up on the farm and has been working in various capacities in the forestry industry for the past 25 years. Both his father and grandfather were working in the industry so forestry is in his blood. He says his family was moved off the farm in 1990.
In 2014 he lodged a land claim for the farm on behalf of the Grootgewacht Community, which to this day has not been resolved.
Hendrick Mbatha, who secured a ‘caretaker’ lease for the Vryheid municipal plantation, is passionate about forestry and going all out to build a sustainable business.
In 2020, when the previous 30-year lease for the farm came to an end, Hendrick put in a strong bid to take over management of the farm. He secured a three-year ‘caretaker’ lease and has been running the farm ever since.
Now forestry is a long-term business with tree rotations ranging from eight to 30 years, so there is not much you can expect a lessee to achieve in such a short space of time. But Hendrick has gone all out to maintain and improve the estate. He has renovated the dilapidated buildings on the farm and fixed up the recreational area around the dam that is used and enjoyed by locals. He has fenced the entire farm to keep out goats and cattle that were damaging growing trees, and has re-planted wherever he has harvested.
He has been converting some of the pine areas to shorter rotation gum and black wattle, which he believes makes business sense for the future sustainability of the farm. Gum species planted are a mix of E. grandis, E. dunnii and E. smithii.
Every fifth row in this wattle compartment has been felled to provide easy access and give the remaining trees more room to grow.
With his three-year lease coming to an end all too soon, he is already busy negotiating with the Abaqulusi officials for an extension, pending the finalisation of the land claim.
“I want to keep the farm clean because it’s coming to us, so I work hard for the future,” says Hendrik.
He says that there was a lot of negativity in the district when he first secured a lease to run the farm, with many people predicting that it would rapidly fall into disrepair, as has happened in other municipal plantations around the province.
But Hendrick says that he has worked hard to build relationships with neighbours and local stakeholders, and many of the people who were doubting him before are now shaking his hand.
He supplies pine sawlogs to the previous lessee, RF Gevers, who owns a large sawmill nearby, and also allows them to cut grass around the farm for winter feed as it helps to reduce the fuel load, thus reducing the fire risk. He expressed his appreciation for the support he has received from the directors of RF Gevers who have provided him with assistance and advice over the past two years.
A well maintained grassland and wetland area, and a nice pine compartment.
The picnic area around the dam is spic and span, the grass is mowed regularly and he has built braai stands and fixed up the toilet facilities – much to the delight of the local day visitors. He has also renovated an old building next to the dam and uses it as his office, equipment store and workshop. He has cut down some huge old gum trees growing wild around the dam, and says the dam’s water levels have risen as a result.
Standing pine is sold to RF Gevers; gum and wattle timber is sold to TWK and Sappi, and he has been supplying fresh wattle bark to NTE.
Eza Mapipa, Forestry Development Officer at NTE, is extremely impressed with the productivity on the farm which has supplied NTE’s Stillwater depot in Vryheid with some 700 tons of fresh bark during this past season.
Eza Mapipa at the NTE depot just outside Vryheid where Hendrick Mbatha delivers his fresh bark.
“I am glad that NTE could open the market opportunity for Mr Mbatha so he could get paid the right price for his good quality bark,” commented Eza. “Mr Mbatha is doing a great job, and it is nice to see a municipal plantation that is running so well.”
Hendrick employs 25 people on the farm, and hires additional help when needed. The farm is not certified, but Hendrick says he will address that when the future of the farm is more certain. The timber growing on the farm is insured through Safire, and he joined the local FPA last year.
Hendrick and farm supervisor Mandla Ndlovu were happy to show SA Forestry around the farm and were clearly proud of their handywork. Farm roads are well maintained and have been recently graded, with good drainage ditches and runoffs. We saw a healthy wattle compartment where every fifth row had been felled and the slash stacked neatly in rows. A team of workers was busy hoeing around some recently planted Eucalyptus, and a local farmer was cutting and baling grass for cattle feed. Open and riparian areas are well maintained with little alien vegetation evident. The recreational area around the dam is immaculate.
Overall, we saw a shipshape tree farm run effectively by a highly motivated farm manager, who means business!
The farm building has been renovated and serves as an office, equipment store and workshop.Proud tree farmers … (left to right) Mandla Ndlovu (farm supervisor), Hendrick Mbatha and Eza Mapipa of NTE.The entire perimeter of the farm has been fenced to keep out cattle and goats.Hendrick Mbatha uses a trail bike to get around the farm.Farm workers hoeing around recently planted gum seedlings to eliminate competing weeds.The removal of big gum trees that were growing around the dam has resulted in improved water levels. Note the well maintained plantation road.
The Cape sawlog PINCH!
Charles Whitcher, head of AC Whitcher forestry, with some impressive pines on one of their plantations in the Tsitsikamma. These precious timber resources are protected behind very wide fire breaks which are essential to maintain in this fire-prone environment.
The scramble for scarce roundlog resources in the Southern Cape has stakeholders on edge while government takes tentative steps to begin the process of bringing 22 000 ha back into timber production…
The timber industry in the Southern Cape has a long history that goes back to the 19th Century. We’ve all seen those grainy black and white photos of woodcutters felling and sawing huge indigenous hardwood trees in the natural forests around Knysna, George and the Tsitsikamma. The giant logs were hauled to the mills by teams of oxen where they were sawed up for use as building material, furniture, tools and implements, wagons and railway sleepers.
When the authorities eventually realised that the natural forests could not sustain the scale of the logging, they mercifully introduced management controls and then stopped it completely, placing the remaining natural forests in the region under conservation management.
An old steam-powered sawmill in the Knysna indigenous forest, dating back to the late 19th century.
To fill the void the government of the day as well as private entrepreneurs started planting pine to provide the raw sawlogs needed by the sawmills and countless downstream manufacturers and processors engaged in the timber industry, which by this stage underpinned the entire regional economy. The area under pine expanded from the Boland to Plettenberg Bay, and was concentrated around George, Knysna and the Tsitsikamma.
After 1992 government had a re-think about forestry and established Safcol to manage the state plantations on a commercial basis. A decision was made to lease out the 85 000 ha of Cape plantations via a tender process. MTO won the tender and took over management of the plantations in 2001 under a 75 year lease. Prior to this Cabinet made a decision to convert some 45 000 ha of the Cape plantations out of forestry into conservation and other land uses as these plantations were considered marginal and not commercially viable. In terms of the lease MTO was to hand back the exit areas as they were clearfelled at full rotation.
When a fire in the Tsitsikamma in 2005 destroyed some 16 000 ha of plantations, the volume of timber available for sawmillers and other processors in the region began to shrink as the gap between supply and demand became evident. This was the first of many blows that would erode the timber resources over the next 15 years or so. The roundlog shortage was exacerbated by the closure of plantations in terms of government’s exit strategy.
This prompted MTO and other stakeholders to start lobbying government to reassess its exit strategy, which they maintained had not taken into account the full socio-economic impacts that the exit would have on the regional economy.
Roundlogs, lifeblood of the industry.
Exit reversal As a result Government appointed the Vecon Consortium in 2006 to re-assess the viability of the exit areas, which recommended that half of the exit areas – 22 000 ha – be restored to commercial forestry. Cabinet approved the exit reversal of the 22 000 ha in 2008.
Meanwhile the roundlog shortage began to impact on local timber processors with the smaller, informal mills going out of business first. Between 2005 and 2006 11 sawmills closed in the Cape. At the same time there were fears that the land being handed back to SANParks and other authorities was becoming a fire risk.
As the years rolled by, MTO as the incumbent managers of the state plantations tried various approaches to persuade government to allow it to re-establish and/or manage the re-growth of the exit reversal areas after clearfelling. At the same time community leaders and other stakeholders started applying pressure to stake their claims to the land. Bold decision-making and dynamic action was needed, but was not forthcoming.
In 2014 (six years after the Cabinet decision) a feasibility study for the re-commissioning of the VECON forestry areas was presented to the IDC. In May 2017 a land rights enquiry for the Western Cape re-commissioning areas for DAFF was presented to the Western Cape Forestry Forum.
In November 2019 DAFF and the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development put out a tender for a transaction advisor to assist with the development of a sustainable forestry business model in the Western Cape recommissioning areas.
This is what timber processors want to see … young trees in the ground to replace mature trees that can be harvested to keep their sawmills busy.
In the meanwhile the 2017 and 2018 wildfires delivered a hammer blow to the region and put a huge hole in the sawlog resource, and skewed the age class distribution.
The urgent need to re-commission the 22 000 ha was identified as a priority deliverable in the Forestry Sector Masterplan, a part of the Public Private Growth Initiative backed by the president himself.
By this stage the shortage of sawlogs – especially the large B,C & D class logs required by the sawmills producing structural lumber – is reaching critical levels, raising tensions among stakeholders even further.
Some of these mills, like AC Whitcher and Boskor, are partially or wholly dependent upon MTO for suitable roundlogs to keep their mills operating at capacity. MTO has its own mills in George and Longmore to keep supplied with logs as well, so there is a conflict of interests at play.
Both Whitcher and Boskor (owned by Swartland Investments) are old, established family-owned Cape businesses. Their supply contracts with MTO have long since been curtailed and they are reduced to haggling over roadside auctions. Job losses are on the cards. Many smaller mills and pole manufacturers in the region are in the same boat.
21st century breakdown saw, AC Whitcher sawmill, Cold Stream.
Survival mode “We are surviving for now … we are simply outbidding all the competition because we still can, but this is not sustainable,” commented Hans Hanekom, CEO of Swartland which owns and operates the Boskor sawmill in the Tsitsikamma. Swartland manufactures doors and windows in their factory in Cape Town.
“For now we are taking everything into the mill that we can - even rejects. We need mainly B, C & D class logs but can use the upper end of A class logs as well. Half of our pine business is for export. The commodity boom due to COVID helped us as prices climbed, but it is getting over now … we are hanging on for dear life. Sooner or later we will lose the export business because our raw log prices are too high – we are competing in this market with Brazil, Chile and Poland.
“There were 300 000 cubes of roundwood a year available in the Tsitsikamma … now its 200 000 cubes, and 100 000 cubes is being taken to George by MTO. We are buying the lion’s share of timber sold at roadside here in Tsitsikamma,” said Hans.
AC Whitcher is slightly better off as they have 1 200 ha of their own plantations in the Titsikamma, which supplies some 10-15% of the mill’s roundlog requirements. Another 25% of their timber intake is supplied in terms of a long term contract with MTO. For the rest they must compete with the open market for roadside sales.
According to Gene Ritchie who manages the AC Whitcher sawmill, they are over-harvesting their own plantations to keep their mill busy.
AC Whitcher sawmill employs 300 people and Boskor around 150 people.
PG Bison, which operates the large Thesens sawmill in George, is better off as they have their own plantations, although they also suffered losses during the recent fires.
Kareedow Kreosoot Werke (KKW) in E Cape is also feeling the pinch. They employ 76 people and produce 12 000 cubes to 16 000 cubes of SABS approved poles a year for domestic and international markets. According to branch manager Lelani van der Walt they are running short of poles for processing – especially the species that they need i.e. P. radiata. She said they were getting the bulk of their poles from MTO but no longer … the supply dried up around December last year. They also source poles from private growers. E. grandis is also scarce, she says, and they are trucking in raw poles from KZN.
“We knew there was a shortage looming, but the crunch has actually arrived – not just for us but for everybody including the small sawmillers. We have hope that we will continue to be able to source the right raw poles we need, if they plant up unplanted and burnt areas etc … I pray that something will come up, otherwise it is inevitable that jobs will be lost.”
Gene Ritchie, Manager of AC Whitcher sawmill, 5th generation sawmiller.
The timber grown in the Tsitsikamma provides the raw materials for downstream processors where it is turned into lumber used in the construction industry and many other products, creating and sustaining downstream jobs.
Avocados The news that MTO is planning to convert 4300ha of forestry land to avocados has not gone down well with the sawmill lobby. Neither has the fact that, as at January 2020, 8.7% of MTO’s sustainable plantation area was temporarily unplanted – presumably mainly areas burnt in the 2017/18 fires.
According to the MTO Management Plan TUP will increase to 14% by 2024, whereafter it will reduce to 1.5% by 2029.
“It’s a dire state of affairs, and there are no easy answers,” commented Roy Southey, Executive Director of the Sawmilling Association of SA. “The small independent millers are really battling. Everybody has known the timber shortage has been coming for a long time, but now it’s critical.”
The pressure on the Department to get a move on and put the 22 000 ha out to tender is ratcheting up, and all of the stakeholders are positioning themselves to pitch hard for these plantations, which are expected to be offered in three or four packages.
Albi Modise, Chief Director of Communications for DFFE told SA Forestry that the process would begin during the 2021/2022 financial year.
He said that the preferred model will be for investors to partner with neighbouring communities, and that the leases would be for a maximum of two rotations.
MTO response MTO CEO Greg Woodbridge welcomed the news that DFFE plans to move on returning the Vecon areas into timber production.
“We believe revitalizing the forestry cultivation on the Vecon areas is long overdue and will go a long way in enhancing the round log supply to the market. MTO attempted over an extended period of time to have the decision around exit plantations reversed, however we were not successful. Through ongoing engagements with DFFE we are in support of their plans of returning the 22 000 ha back to forestry. It is our opinion that this could have been done several years ago and the impending volume cliff could have been avoided. MTO stands ready to assist in whichever manner this initiative takes to restore the forestry industry in the area to previous levels that will benefit the local community and the industry,” said Greg.
“MTO’s operations in the Southern Cape have been significantly affected by fires over an extended period of time, however we continue to invest in our forestry assets to ensure we get the plantations into full rotation. The average growth cycle for our trees is between 18-22 years which gives us the clear runway for getting our plantations into full rotation and the timing to realize the maximum volume possible.”
The exit reversal areas are currently being managed for fire protection and alien clearing by the Forestry Support Programme and Working on Fire.
According to Braam du Preez of the Forestry Support Programme, there are pockets of trees in some of these exit reversal areas that have regenerated naturally and are growing well. This will give the new lessees a bit of a running start when they take over management of these areas, some of which have been lying fallow and unproductive for years.
In any event there is going to be a lot of investment required and a lot of work for local people when these areas eventually come back on stream!
Keeping AC Whitcher's blades sharp is essential for good productivity …
With the onset of what promises to be a cold winter, this photo provides a timely reminder of what happens to wattle trees when it snows. No! It’s not a good idea to plant wattle if snow is a possibility. The only thing you could use these broken trees for is firewood. The photo was taken near Weza a few years ago.
Pine is much better suited to handling snow. Most of these seedlings seem to have survived the snow onslaught and will probably grow OK over the course of their rotation.
Eucalypts don’t do well in snow either. A few years ago Ian Crouch of Five Star Contracting invited the SA Forestry team to see how he straightens Eucalyptus saplings bent over by a heavy snowfall in the Bulwer area, a notoriously cold spot …
This is what the Eucalyptus compartment looked like after the snowfall.
This is how eucs grow out after they have been snow damaged during their early years. There’s not much you can do with these trees at harvest time.
Ian Crouch ready to straighten a snow damaged euc.
Ian bends it all the way back in the opposite direction to ‘fix’ the bend.
Then he lets it go … and it ends up straight again, as it was before the snowstorm. It’s labour intensive but effective, and probably needs to be done as soon as possible after the snow event before the tree starts to harden the bend.
Tigercat 1185 Harvester in action
The giant Tigercat 1185 harvester felling pine on the muddy slopes of a plantation in Richmond, KZN.
Check out the new Tigercat 1185 wheeled harvester in action in Richmond, KZN. It's the first harvester of it's kind to be brought in by AfrEquip forestry equipment. The Tigercat 1185 is one of the biggest, toughest wheeled harvesters on the local market. Keep an eye out in the next edition of SA Forestry magazine for the full story...
