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Sustainable Forestry and Forest Conservation in New
Zealand
Six billion people rely on forests to cook food, build
houses, make furniture, mix medicines and stay warm,
creating intense pressure on the world’s woods. With the
world’s population forecast to grow by another billion
and a half people by the next couple of decades, the
need to manage our forestland for sustainable production
is critical. 50% of the 3.6 billion m3 global
wood harvest is used as fuel. Of the balance, 60% are
sawlogs used for solid wood and lumber applications. In
addition, the world wide demand for paper has increased
five fold since the 1950s and is expected to double
again over the next 50 years. According to the Certified
Forest Products Council, 680 billion board feet of wood
are harvested every year to meet the growing demand for
paper and timber products. Sustainably managed
plantation forests are a key part of meeting this
growing demand and reducing pressure on native forest
areas.
Sustainable forestry is a forest management process that
addresses the entire eco-system rather than the trees
alone. Sustainable forestry often relates to natural
cover and forest where seed trees are left for natural
regeneration. There is often powerful argument as to
what is truly sustainable. There are three requirements
for sustainable forest use, viz. maintaining the
ecological processes in forests (the formation of soil,
energy flows, and the carbon, nutrients and water
cycles); maintaining the biological diversity of
forests; and optimising the benefits to the community
from all uses of forests within these ecological
constraints.
Forests cover about 30 percent or 8.1 million hectares
of New Zealand's land area. Of this, about 6.4 million
hectares are in natural forest and 1.7 million hectares
in planted production forests. Of the total planted
production forest estate, 91 percent is radiata pine (Pinus
radiata), and 5 percent is Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga
menziesii). Hardwoods comprise about 3 percent of New
Zealand's planted production forests. The most important
hardwood plantation species are eucalypts originating
from Australia.
When people first arrived in New Zealand over 80% of the
land was covered in native forests and 20% that wasn’t
covered was mostly mountain tops. Now only about 23% of
New Zealand is covered in native forests. As a result,
sustainable forestry is of utmost importance in New
Zealand.
The forestry industry is an increasingly important
contributor to the New Zealand economy. It is the third
largest export earner and contributes about $5 billion
or 4% to our Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Investing in
sustainable forestry not only benefits the investor but
also the environment and the future generation.
New Zealand has been resourceful in the past 40 years,
restoring agricultural or degraded pasturelands with
exotic tree plantations that provide forest cover, boost
global capacity to sequester carbon, stimulate the
economic value of land holdings and increase the
production of wood fibre.
The role of the Indigenous Forestry Unit is to
facilitate the sustainable management of New Zealand’s
indigenous forests. The unit administers the indigenous
forestry provisions of the Forests Act 1949, which was
amended in 1993 to bring an end to unsustainable
harvesting and clear-felling of indigenous forest.
Under the Forests Act, indigenous timber can only be
produced from forests which are managed in a way that
maintains continuous forest cover and ecological
balance. Management systems ensure that the forests
continuously provide a full range of products and
amenities, in perpetuity, while retaining the forests’
natural values. Only single trees and small groups of
trees can be felled for timber production.
There are provisions for the milling minor quantities of
timber where a plan or permit is not in place e.g.
naturally dead, wind-thrown and salvaged timber and
timber approved for harvesting and milling for an
owner’s personal use.
The Indigenous Forestry Unit approves sustainable
management plans for all indigenous production forests.
According to the Indigenous Forestry Unit, sawmills may
only mill logs sourced from forests managed according to
sustainable management plans or permits.
Around 1.0million hectares of privately-owned indigenous
forest must comply with the provisions of the Act when
harvesting indigenous timber for milling. Currently
around 112,500 hectares of forests are subject to
management under 584 management plans and permits
management plans. They produce a range of timbers for
use in furniture and speciality areas. Approximately
250,000 hectares of indigenous forests have the
potential to be sustainably managed.
The East Coast Forestry Project was set up by the
Government in 1992. Administered through the Group’s
Gisborne office, the project’s objective until June 1999
was to plant 200,000 hectares of commercial forest over
28 years on severely eroding and potentially erosion
prone land in the East Coast of the North Island.
Following a Ministerial review this objective has been
modified to target 60,000 hectares of the most at risk
lands plus immediate surrounding areas. Protecting the
land will be achieved mainly through commercial forest
planting.
So far around 32000 hectares have been planted
established and a further 5000 hectares are approved for
planting establishment over the next few years.
Landholders are encouraged to tender for government
grants which help fund the cost of establishing and
managing the forest. This financial assistance offsets
the additional costs and risks associated with
afforestation on fragile land.
Not only that, the Forest Management Group administers a
portfolio of loans ($34 million) made to Regional and
District Councils to establish forests in the 1970s and
80s. There are currently 55 of these forests throughout
the country. As the forests are harvested, the loans
will be repaid to the Government. Harvesting is now
underway in some areas. The Group inspects all forests
annually to ensure operations are being carried out
satisfactorily.
The overall purpose of the Crown Forestry Group is to
manage the Crown's interest in a number of commercial
forests and forestry-related leases. There are 26
forests geographically spread throughout New Zealand’s
North Islands. The total planted area of these forests
is around 40,000 hectares with harvesting activity
producing an annual cut in 2004/2005 of approximately
1.1 million cubic metres. This level of harvest will
increase as other forests reach maturity, rising to more
than 1.5 million cubic metres per annum by the year
2011. Of the forests, 17 are forests planted on land
leased from Maori landowners. Moreover, there are 13
afforestation leases where Crown land has been leased to
other parties for forestry purposes as well as the
Tarawera Forests and Haparangi Trust. Apart from these,
there is a portfolio of Forestry Encouragement Loans
under the Forestry Encouragement Loan Regulations
(1967). This portfolio had a value, as in July 2004, of
$25 million.
In respect of the forests planted on land leased from
Maori landowners, the Crown has a policy of being
prepared to sell its interest in the leases to
individual lesser groups where lesser are keen to do
this. A number of forests have already been sold or have
had the leases significantly shortened and negotiations
to effect similar lease variations are underway with
several other lesser groups.
In New Zealand a growing number of forward-thinking
plantation owners are recognizing that the best way to
not only manage their forests well but also to be
positioned in the forefront of the industry is to adopt
standards defined by the Forest Stewardship Council, an
international accreditation body.
Establishing planted forests on marginal pastoral land
can improve the quality of streams, reduce soil
deterioration and enhance biodiversity by restoring
habitat for under-story brush vegetation, as well as
birds and aquatic insects. These trees absorb and store
carbon and play a significant role in mitigating the
effects of global climate change. During the last thirty
years, New Zealand’s plantation forest has expanded
significantly, with average planting rates reaching
about 43,500 hectares a year. The country’s current
total planted estate of tree farms now cover
approximately 1.77 million ha, or 6.5% of the total land
area, supplying virtually all of the nation’s wood fibre
needs and allowing for the protection of native forest.
Along with dedicated reforestation programmes, the
Rainforest Alliance has defined benchmarks of
responsible forestry criteria to include:
Ø
Proper forest management planning;
Ø
Concerted efforts for tree and stand improvement;
Ø
Genuine stakeholder consultation;
Ø
Safer conditions for forest workers;
Ø
Monitoring of harvesting impacts on soils and water;
and,
Ø
Identification and protection of conservation areas,
special cultural sites, riparian and wildlife
corridors.
In 1989, the Rainforest Alliance launched the SmartWood
Programme, the first forest certification programme in
the world to establish standards for forest management,
a certification eco-label and systems to track
chain-of-custody to the end consumer. Though it
initially focused on tropical forests, today the
Rainforest Alliance SmartWood
Programme works in all forest types – tropical,
temperate and boreal. Forest-management certification is
credible because it:
Ø
Ensures that the management of forests and the
harvesting of timber provide environmental, social
and economic benefits to local communities;
Ø
Creates market incentives for producers to adopt
sustainable practices in managing forests and harvesting
timber;
Ø
Offers wood products originating from well-managed
forests as environmentally responsible alternatives,
enabling consumers to help conserve forests and protect
biodiversity.
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