WE ARE BETTER THAN YOU HAVE BEEN LED TO BELIEVE

Environmentally and economically, forestry has so much to offer. We’d like to briefly tell you about it.

SOAKING UP CARBON

Our trees absorb carbon. In fact, plantation forests sequester more than half of Aotearoa New Zealand’s total carbon emissions. That’s more than 21 million tonnes of CO₂ every year. Industrial emissions haven’t gone down in 20 years of trying. That leaves these trees as the only efficient, mass and cheap way of preventing national greenhouse gases getting out of control. Trees serve as a bridge to zero carbon by 2050. Then, fingers crossed, technology will have advanced enough to do the job.

CREATING JOBS

As our forests expand, we employ more people. PricewaterhouseCoopers has calculated that forestry employs more than twice the number of workers per hectare than sheep and beef farming. That study shows these forest jobs enhance rural communities.

WE ARE PART OF FARMING

Farmers own more than a third of a million hectares of pine forests, out of a total planted area of 1.8 million hectares, which is a slightly smaller area than 20 years ago. Landowners should be free to diversify into pines, or any other trees, instead of regulations forcing them to stick with livestock.

FASTER GROWING EXPORTS

Forest exports are worth more than $6 billion per year. Analysis by the Ministry for Primary Industries in 2020 predicted wood products’ export value will grow by another $2.6b by 2030. That’s more growth than MPI expects from the dairy and meat industries combined. Export earnings per forest hectare are 2.5 times that of hill country farming.

HOLDING THE LAND TOGETHER

Trees hold the land together better than pasture. Cyclone Gabrielle displaced 300 million tonnes of soil – mostly from pastureland. Gabrielle (twice the intensity of Bola in 1988) was scouring all before it. The Interpine analysis of washed down wood at Wairoa, for example, revealed higher concentrations of willows and poplars, and native trees, than wood from pine trees. ‘Forest slash’ was actually only 2% of the total.

NATIVE BIRDS SEEKING US OUT

Endangered birds, such as falcon and kiwi, can avoid predators and often find more food in plantation forests than in other habitats. Pine forests don’t need pesticides, and rarely fertilisers, and they filter water from land where both are used.

WE ARE MĀORI INTERESTS

There is perhaps no industry with a greater relative Māori interest, through ownership and jobs, than in forestry.

ENJOYING WOOD

Wood in buildings looks and is natural. And the wood still stores the tree carbon. People enjoy being in forests too. Mountain bikers and hikers spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year in local hospitality around our forests.

GETTING OUT OF FOSSIL FUELS

The world is turning to wood – away from coal and oil. Our dairy plants are seeking vast volumes of wood to heat their powder driers, while dairy farmers are using natural wood chip for their cow standing-pads.

INVESTING IN A BETTER FUTURE

Worldwide, planted forests are likely to double by 2100, with trees to store carbon, and wood for buildings with less concrete and steel, as well as the raw material for a global mass transformation to sustainable everyday alternatives to plastic.