62nd FEFPEB congressThursday 30 September - Friday 1 October 2010Welcome to the website of the 62nd FEFPEB congress, held on 30 September and 1 October 2010 in Thanks to all the speakers for a great Business Session which had been both informative and intellectually simulating. Patrick Moore gave a fascinating presentation from an environmentalist’s perspective. We learned a lot about trees and reforestation. We will never look at a felled forest in the same way again! Forestry is indeed THE most sustainable industry and is a major renewable energy resource. Patrick Moore has reinforced our belief wood IS good and wood is environmentally beneficial. The message is clear: grow more trees and use more wood! Patrick challenged our thinking on certification. Why are the materials steel and concrete and plastics not certified? Wood has to meet much more stringent environmental criteria due to ignorance and false perception of forestry techniques. It is also clear that we need competition in certification systems. Overall, Patrick Moore’s inspired speech reinforces our knowledge that forestry is a force for good and the pallet and packaging market sector is of critical importance to the economic viability of the forest based industries. “May the forest be with you” is indeed an appropriate slogan. Peter Praet gave an excellent and insightful expose of the intricate workings of the world financial system and how it may impact on us. Visions of printing presses and Goldilocks will persist! There are clearly a lot of serious risks and the current world financial system remains fragile. Gil Covey briefly outlined the very real challenges faced by the timber pallet and packaging industry which requires FEFPEB to urgently develop a Public Relations campaign. He stressed the need for the key stakeholders to support FEFPEB so that an effective PR campaign can be funded and launched in the near future. Harry Arijs updated us on ISPM15 matters throughout the EU. Interceptions of wood packaging materials showed that more than 5% were found to contain harmful organisms. There has been a drastic improvement since ISPM15 was introduced which clearly demonstrates that the combined efforts of plant health regulators and our industry has been highly successful at reducing the risk to our forests. Nevertheless, there are still serious worries over the risks associated with pine wood nematode and other invasive species. There are continuing major challenges ahead for the European Plant Health Services. Mr Arijs confirmed that FEFPEB will be fully consulted about the proposed extension of IPSM15 for intra-community movement of timber pallets and packaging. A full Impact Assessment will be required. The European Commission is giving this matter due consideration in a sensible timescale, but the situation can change if further outbreaks of PWN or other invasive species occur. We have to be prepared to act! Dr Edmundo Sousa presented some surprising results from the major Portuguese study of the risk of reinfestation of PWN from pallets. PWN can live for up to a maximum of 40 weeks and will only transfer from fresh infested wood to used packaging material if the Moisture Content of the used WPM is above 25%. PWN does not transfer to WPM at temperatures below 10 ° celsius and can transfer between fresh boards and blocks but not on old dry wood. There is no transmission on kiln dried (KD) timber but there is on heat treated (HT) timber if the Moisture content of the HT material is still above 25%. (= above cell saturation) We need time to reflect on these results and further research is planned. The objective is to give definitive results to the European Commission Plant Health experts in order to assist them in drafting appropriate regulations. Dr Cormac O’Carroll informed us that bio energy demand is going to increase dramatically and governmental subsidies are a critical issue that will affect us. The real problem appears to be restricted to LARGE power plants in terms of sourcing biomass. Smaller localised demand for biomass is unlikely to impose a threat to ongoing wood supplies to existing industries. Timber price increases, due to demand from the renewable energy sector appear inevitable but should be manageable. Indeed, there will be some opportunities arising from the higher value of recovered wood. Dr O’Carroll’s perspective on the effect of demand for wood from the renewable energy industry was reassuring and thought provoking but the actual impact in each country will have to be carefully monitored. Filip De Jaeger outlined the CEI-Bois position on renewable energy demand for wood. The CEI-Bois view is very balanced for all the woodworking sector. It is evident that there are conflicting factors at work and in some areas the woodworking industry can take advantage of some opportunities. However, high governmental subsidies are a real concern as they can distort the market. Gil Covey, FEFPEB President summarised by saying we were privileged to have insightful speakers on critical topics to our industry and they have provided us with much food for thought. The significant positive interaction between the speakers and the audience was a clear sign of an interesting and valuable business session. He thanked the sponsors whose generous support had made the Congress such a success. He also thanked the translators for their excellent and important service and he especially thanked Fons Ceelaert and the team of the Secretariat for arranging this congress at very short notice. Finally he thanked all the delegates who once again had shown how they value our annual Congress by attending in large numbers. This clearly demonstrates how important it is to have a strong and effective European industry federation. This was a shortened Congress but by locating it in Brussels – where many key decisions will be made for our European industry – FEFPEB has achieved its objective of updating and informing its members on all key issues that currently affect the timber pallet and packaging industry. Best regards, Gill Covey, President FEFPEB |
