Steep land harvesting is forestry’s ‘Achilles heel’

MORE RESEARCH NEEDS TO BE CONDUCTED INTO THE EFFECTS caused by establishing and harvesting plantation forests on steep land, says a Scion scientist.

With more forests being planted on steeper sites the potential for things to go wrong is increasing, Scion Principal Scientist, Tim Payn, told the New Zealand Institute of Forestry annual conference in Rotorua last month.

By 2024, more than 65% of our national harvest will be taking place on very challenging steep land environments.

“Steepland harvesting is probably our Achilles heel at the moment because of the potential effects on the environment,” warns Dr Payn.

He believes steep land research needs to be “ramped up” in order to better understand the effects and to be able to provide evidence to counter criticism of harvesting on these sites.

Dr Payn says we also need to think more about where to establish new Radiata forests in the future, especially on erosionprone land and whether existing plantations in these locations should be retired and left to grow native trees for carbon only.

He also suggests that forests could be planted on agricultural buffer zones, such as around streams and water courses that would not only improve water quality but also provide revenue streams from harvested timber and carbon.

“There’s a lot, in terms of volume, that could be grown in buffer zones around New Zealand – it’s a real opportunity,” he adds.

His opinion was supported by another speaker at the conference. Russell Death, Professor of Freshwater Ecology at Massey University, agrees that forestry can do much to improve the ecological health of waterways and argued that more trees are needed to arrest the degradation that has taken place on dairy farms over the past 20 years.

Another topic that needs to be discussed by foresters is the effect of climate change on the industry, as well as on the wider community.

Dr Payn thinks there is a need for a National Adaptation Working Group around climate change to look at where we are going and how we are going to get there and to prepare for the increasing number of extreme weather events.

He also reiterated a point made by several speakers at the NZIF conference, highlighting the need for the forestry industry to go “on the front foot” in telling its story to the public to promote how well it is doing with regards to the environment, as well as other areas.

Most importantly, he says: “We need to have supporting evidence to show that we know what we are doing and we’re doing the best job possible.”

NZL