Maori owners ‘not interested’ in trees

IT MIGHT COME AS A SURPRISE TO THE INDUSTRY, BUT SOME Maori who own the land where forests grow are “not interested” in trees.

That’s the view according to Kim von Lanthen, who has worked closely with iwi in forestry enterprises in New Zealand.

He told the ForestWood 2018 conference in Wellington last month that there is a disconnect between Maori who own the land on which trees have been established, and the trees themselves.

He puts it down largely to the “justice of past leases”, which do not reflect market rates and therefore provide a reduced income to Maori land owners. They feel cheated because they are not getting the true value of their land holdings.

This is felt more strongly at the local level by hapu, more than at the higher iwi level, says Mr von Lanthen, who is a director of iwi forestry path-finder Totiu Te Waonui and forestry market maker, ForestX.

He goes on to say they do become more excited when they actually own the trees and can see the benefits from being a forester at first hand.

Mr von Lanthem points out that once all the Treaty of Waintagi settlements had been successfully negotiated it was likely that Maori would end up owning around 75% of the land sitting under forests.

Additionally, Maori also have land holdings that could provide another 500,000 hectares to be planted in trees under the government’s ‘billion trees’ programme, and are likely to be the key to its success, with the main regions of opportunity identified as the Bay of Plenty, Gisborne, Hawkes’ Bay and Waikato.

However, he says: “If we ask them to step up and take on this extra forestry responsibility you have to ask ‘with what?’

“The conversation needs to start with who is going to help them establish a crop they can own within seven-to-eight years.”

Mr von Lanthem says it will require a partnership with Maori to make this happen and suggests that industry could help do more than government in this respect.

NZL