South Africa is a country with a low mean rainfall and as a result most of the natural vegetation is non-woody with a narrow broken belt of natural forest along the southern and eastern seaboards. Following many years of investment and development, South Africa has become the third largest and oldest plantation resource in the Southern hemisphere. With a total area of over 1.5 million hectares consisting of both softwood and hardwood species the industry produces a range of products such as poles, sawn timber, wood chips, pulp and paper. Forestry in South Africa follows the classic viewpoint of agriculture, ie choosing the desired crops species and growing it in an artificial, man-made even-aged monoculture. The success of this approach is dependant on a number of factors such as markets (availability and distance); species selection (species site matching for maximum growth); improved sources of genetic material (seedlings or clones); site specific silviculture (site preparation, fertilisation, maintenance); managing risk (drought, disease, insects); harvesting (applying technologies) and sustainability (survivable ecological and economic system). The introduction into South Africa of exotic forest tree species with much faster growth rates than indigenous species brought a major advantage to the timber industry and marked the first phase in domestication of forest species.