Smart Firewood aims to deliver a convenient, local, smart, and sustainable supply of premium plantation hardwood firewood to people in the Northern Rivers who enjoy the warmth and ambience of a wood fire, but don’t want the mess or hassle of large piles of firewood outside their home.
Locally owned, Smart Firewood’s founders Tim Winton and Bob Eather connected several years ago through their shared recognition of the importance of restorative forestry practices and soil enhancement. With a focus on sustainability, and a commitment to championing the use of renewable plantation forests, they created Smart Firewood as a way to sustainably support these practices.
Sustainable firewood markets are a key component of helping landowners steward their restoration forestry practices. Many North Coast forests have been continually high-graded for the most valuable forest products, leaving degraded forest environments that would benefit from restorative harvesting practices based on the forests natural mosaic structure. A sustainable firewood market can help provide landowners with the income for these restorative practices.
Between them, Tim and Bob have over 80 years experience in regenerative agriculture, permaculture, and sustainable forestry.
Tim has provided sustainable forestry consulting and permaculture services in the Northern Rivers of NSW since 1995, having started his career planting trees in northern Canada. He has established 1000’s of hectares of plantation forest, as well as providing specialist silvicultural services such as pruning, thinning, and provenance seed collections. Having led a permaculture eco-education centre for many years, Tim’s experience in the Northern Rivers region includes forest management, plantation design, forestry business planning, and domestic and export timber marketing.
Bob is a seventh generation farmer and has been involved in regenerative agriculture since 1993. Previously a director and shareholder of CarbonLink, Bob has a passion for generating healthy forests, most recently working on his own large-scale property to regenerate the forest from bell-bird initiated dieback. Driven by a strong principle that healthy land equals healthy forest, Bob’s focus is on rebuilding the landscape in a sustainable way. Members of Bob’s family have lived in the Northern Rivers region for many years, and he and his wife June now live in Kyogle, continuing their work in forest regeneration.