The Forest Resource Use Model (FoRUM) was developed to inform this debate by evaluating the economic impacts of changes in the Australian forestry sector, and despite numerous revisions FoRUM has not been comprehensively documented since 1997. ABARES have now released this report which presents an overview of current state of FoRUM, the datasets, modelled equations, and the general structure of the model.
FoRUM has been used extensively over the past three decades to inform both state and national forestry policy development. Initially FoRUM was used to estimate the economic impacts of closing native forests to harvesting to inform the establishment of the 10 Commonwealth and State Regional Forest Agreements.
More recently FoRUM has been used to model the potential long-term outlook for Australia’s forest and wood product sectors. Since 2015, FoRUM has been used in both published reports and to inform government policy. Examples include:
- estimating potential plantation investment (Whittle, Lock and Hug 2019),
- evaluating options for utilising forest and sawmill residues (Lock and Whittle 2018), and
- estimating the importance of sawmill size on plantation establishment (Whittle and Downham 2019).
ABARES has committed to continue to refine and update the data sources and modelling approach in line with future research projects.
In the most recent FWPA/ABARES workplan, FWPA has set aside funding in 2023 to undertake a project using FoRUM with guidance from the industry in the form of an industry working group.
Prior to this, FWPA is seeking industry feedback on industry experiences with the use of FoRUM so that we can have a greater understanding of industry needs with any future application of this model.
Please contact Kevin Peachey, FWPA Statistics and Economics Manager on Kevin.peachey@fwpa.com.au or 0411 060 186 to discuss any aspect of FoRUM, your feedback would be greatly appreciated.
