Native-tree nursery eyes fast growth

An iwi’s budding plant nursery in the Bay of Plenty will get $5.8 million of the Government’s regional funding promises.

Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced the funding boost at Te Ru¯nanga o Nga¯ti Whare’s Minginui Nursery yesterday.

The money from the Regional Development (Provincial Growth) Fund pool will be used to expand the nursery by 2021 so it can grow 1 million trees a year, most of them native species.

Nga¯ti Whare chairman Bronco Carson said the nursery would hire another 81 employees to take its total staff count to 90.

He encouraged locals to take up the extra jobs to ‘‘deliver economic and social benefits to the area’’.

Jones also announced the region would get cellular coverage.

The Government’s $1 billion a year regional fund was launched in February, with Jones securing $61.7 million for forestry initia- tives, tourism ventures, rail and roading projects, of which about $40m had been allocated.

Most of the funded projects were in Northland, the region Jones hails from.

The $5.8m for Minginui was part of the last $20m left for projects in the fund’s first tranche. The projects getting the remaining $14.2m are yet to be announced.

Nga¯ti Whare Holdings chairman Rick Braddock said the Government boosts for Minginui were in line with its agenda to reinvigorate regions. It also helped with its plan to grow 1 billion trees.

The iwi has invested $1.6m in the nursery. It has been working with forestry-focused Crown research institute Scion for five years to commercialise growing podocarp trees from cuttings.

There are 15 types of podocarp trees, including rimu, kahikatea, miro, mataı¯ and to¯tara.

Scion research and investments general manager Russell Burton said the technology could rapidly reproduce the native trees at a commercial level.