In a landmark acquisition, forestry and sawmill business, OneFortyOne, has taken ownership of the former New Forests-managed Limestone Coast plantation forestry estate. This marks a significant milestone in Australian forestry investment. 

OneFortyOne CEO, Wendy Norris, says the acquisition represents the first investment in forestry of this scale by an Australian company, in the past decade.  

“We are thrilled to expand our Green Triangle, Australian plantation forestry estate by 15%, adding close to 15,000 hectares of plantable area. This is a significant acquisition for the future potential of Australian softwood production,” she says. 

The acquisition includes approximately 14,800 hectares of mixed hardwood (Bluegum) and softwood (Radiata Pine) plantation resource or plantable area, within a total of 20,500 hectares of associated freehold land in the Green Triangle region and in Western Australia. New Forests has invested in the Limestone Estate since 2014, and the sale forms part of its Australia New Zealand Forestry Fund 2’s divestment process.  

SFM, the current property manager of this asset, will continue to provide hardwood and carbon-related management services to OneFortyOne, across the estate for the foreseeable future.

OneFortyOne’s strategic decision to acquire the Limestone Coast estate is aimed at potentially securing domestic sawlog supply well into the future, says Ms Norris: “We are planning decades into the future and are focused on supporting our domestic customers by looking at ways to increase supply of sawlog,” Wendy explained.

“This potential option of converting hardwood to softwood plantation estate, from short to long-term tree rotation, could provide additional certainty for domestic sawmill manufacturing and support domestic processing.”