Forestry Corporation is celebrating National Tree Day and the environmental role that State forests play in carbon capture, biodiversity and providing the state with sustainable timber products.

NSW’s two million hectares of State Forests are important in climate resilience and sustainable resource management, producing enough timber annually to build around 40,000 new homes and essential everyday paper, cardboard and wood products.

Forest management developed over the past 100 years also sees every harvested tree regrown or replanted in state forests, reinforcing the commitment as a land manager to forest regeneration and conservation.

As part of Planet Ark’s National Tree Day initiative, Schools Tree Day will be held on Friday, July 25, followed by National Tree Day on Sunday, July 27.

These nationwide events bring together communities with the goal of planting one million trees.

Forestry Corporation’s production nurseries and staff are playing key roles in raising NSW’s trees of the future from seed.

The Grafton and Tumut nurseries produce around 11 million seedlings each year.

This planting season, the Grafton Nursery has dispatched 300,080 hardwood seedlings, 385,515 softwood seedlings and 4,222 hoop pine seedlings.

A further 80,083 eucalypt seedlings have been grown for private customers and 29,000 koala feed trees have been donated to community organisations, which coordinate tree planting programs.

Even Christmas trees are grown from seed at the nursery with a crop of 15,000 dispatched recently. 

“Every seedling we raise at the nursery represents a future tree contributing to cleaner air, better habitat, timber products and more sustainable forests,” Grafton Nursery Manager Karen Morrow said.

Blowering Nursery, near Tumut, is on track to dispatch nearly 5.5 million seedlings this winter across Southern NSW.

“Our nursery staff started grading and preparing seedlings in early April and have worked hard once again to produce this seedling crop in time for the winter planting season,” Blowering Nursery Manager, Antoinette Roberts said.

Most of the trees in state forests are still planted by hand however mechanical planting trials are also under way to assist with this massive tree planting effort.

For more information visit www.forestrycorporation.com.au