It's one of Australia's largest resource industries. It's also Australia's second largest manufacturing industry, providing jobs for people involved in making paper, and a variety of wood products and furniture.
Many country towns rely on forest industries for their economic survival.
Timber is processed in a sawmill. At the moment, Australia has more than 1000 sawmills which process timber from hardwood trees, and more than 200 softwood sawmills working on timber from softwood trees. We also have more mills which produce pulp and paper products, and wood panel mills. We import most of the good quality paper we use for magazines and writing paper because Australia doesn't have the capacity to make the quantity of these papers that we use. By planting more trees, and continuing to develop our forest industries, we can both improve our environment and make money for Australia.