THE outlook for private forestry is much more promising than it was a few years ago, according to a specialist timber producer.

Denis Brown runs Corsair Timbers, a small company which supplies cut-to-order Australian native timbers to the furniture market.

    AT A GLANCE
  • Who: Denis Brown
  • What: furniture timber
  • Why: bright future
  • Where: Yackandandah, Victoria

He is optimistic about the future of the industry despite the economic downturn.

"I can see this market becoming more profitable than it is now because of the international imposts to stop logging tropical rainforests at unsustainable rates," Denis said.

Australian timbers would take the place of these cheap imports, he said.

Denis, 59, has spent 16 years developing a niche market for quality timber, predominantly blackwood, sold mostly to commercial furniture makers, cabinet makers and hobbyists.

A former geologist, he swapped the mining industry for timber in 1992 to spend more time with his family on their 90ha property east of Yackandandah in Victoria.

Denis began harvesting, milling and drying red stringybark growing on the property.

A partnership with a local engineering company led to the development of dehumidifying kilns for drying timber.

"I thought they would be the best type of kiln to use for the difficult-to-dry Australian hardwoods and that has proven to be the case," he said.

Denis dried his first batch of blackwood in 1994 and is now the biggest miller of blackwood on the Australian mainland.

The timber comes from private land in the Otway Ranges and is milled and dried at Yackandandah and sold as rough-sawn or partly-processed timber.

Denis sells between 180 and 240 cubic metres of finished blackwood boards a year for between $1700 and $4300 a cubic metre, depending on the quality, size, length and quantity.

He still sells stringybark for cabinet making at similar prices.

"It is very difficult to dry but the end result is excellent," Denis said. "I've also done a lot of work with red gum in the past and it's the same, difficult to dry but a beautiful result."

Other timbers Denis has sold include silver and black wattle.

He is also looking at developing a new market for blue-gum wood.

"I'm trying to develop a market for it for use in cabinet making, furniture or flooring, but I need to be able to guarantee supply," he said.

Spotted gum was another species with potential but again with similar constraints to blue gum, Denis said.

The area with a bright future was for structural beams, decking, flooring and panelling made from Australian hardwood.