Regional Workshop 25-28 September 2007 (First Page)

Regional Workshop

25-28 September 2007

Regional Workshop on Processing and Marketing of Teak wood Products of Planted Forests - Teakworkshop 2007 was held on 25-28 September 2007 at Kerala Forest Ressearch Institute, Peechi, Kerala. A total of 88 delegates from all over the world attended the Workshop for which the main focus was to address the issues relating to teak resource management and utilisation.

Processing and Marketing of Teak Wood Products of Planted Forests

25-28 September 2007, Kerala Forest Research Institute,
Peechi, Kerala, India: A Draft Report

K. M. Bhat and R. Gnanaharan

INTRODUCTION

CORE ISSUES ADDRESSED IN THE REGIONAL TEAK WORKSHOP 2007

PANEL DISCUSSION: REGIONAL PROJECT FORMULATION

POSTER SESSION

INTRODUCTION

Teak (Tectona grandis L.f) is being grown in plantations in more than 36 tropical countries across the globe although its natural occurrence is limited to India, Laos Myanmar and Thailand. Of the estimated 187.1 million hectares of global forest plantations in 2000, about 5.7 million hectares (3%) were teak, representing about 75% of the world’s high-quality tropical hardwood plantations, the major producers being India, Indonesia, Myanmar and Thailand. It is little wonder that teak excites more interest among the general public than any other tropical hardwood for its versatile wood with sterling properties.The rapid expansion of teak plantations, however, poses a risk of undermining its reputation in global market place because of wide variations in wood quality with the net effect of reducing the prices and therefore the financial viability of teak planting programmes. To avoid this, teak growers at the community and industrial levels, must ensure that the wood they produce is of the highest possible quality, which will mean choosing the right sites carefully, using good genetic stock, employing optimal rotation cycles and appropriate silvicultural techniques.
Over the past decade, at least four international seminars/workshops were held in the Asia-Pacific Region to address the issues relating to teak resource management and utilisation. However, knowledge of performance and behaviour of teak wood products of planted forests/clonal trees of shorter rotation including agroforestry/ community and home garden forestry sectors is still inadequate in the context of sustainable tropical forest management (SFM). Timber trade and SFM are the two key components of globalization and sustainable development of teakwood sector. The Workshop addressed the major challenges of ‘new age eco-products’ of teak that use innovative technologies for quicker production of quality timber and value addition to the products together with reducing wood waste for overcoming the limitations of small dimensional new resources as summarized below: