THE FORESTRY SECTOR IN NEW ZEALAND
INTRODUCTION
The forestry industry in New Zealand has been gaining momentum over the last 25 years to the point where it is now our third largest export earner behind meat and dairy products. The forestry sector accounts for six per cent of New Zealand's Gross Domestic Product, directly employs 28,000 people and exports the equivalent of 10 million cubic metres of wood annually to a value of over $2 billion - that's over 10 per cent of this country's total export earnings.
The potential for continued growth is exciting. World consumption of wood has been increasing steadily along with population growth.
The United Nations food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) forecasts that at current rates world wood demand will continue to increase by more than 40 per cent to over 5000 million cubic metres annually by the year 2010.
New Zealand has 1.3 million hectares of the world's estimated 100 million hectares of plantation forests and importing countries are increasingly looking to New Zealand to help fill their timber needs.
This booklet follows the development of commercial forestry in New Zealand from the 1800s to today and looks ahead to the increasing role this sector will play in our economy.
HISTORY OF FORESTRY IN NEW ZEALAND
In The Beginning
About 1,000 years ago the first human inhabitants arrived in New Zealand from Polynesia and found a country threequarters covered in forest. By the time European immigrants arrived some 850 years later around one third of this forest had been cleared. Today only 23 per cent of New Zealand is covered in natural forest. Planted production forest covers 4 per cent of our land area.
Most European settlers were keen to clear the forests to make way for pasture. There were so many trees and so few people in most areas that the forests seemed inexhaustible. The exception was the treeless Canterbury Plains of the South Island's east coast where early farmers had to plant trees for shelter. One of the trees they planted from the 1850s on was radiata pine (Pinusa). It was from these early plantings that radiata pine showed its qualities. It grew faster than many of the other species, was easy to establish and produced an extremely versatile timber. These characteristics are just some of the reasons why radiata pine has become our main plantation species.
Dawning Awareness of Forestry's Potential
In the latter part of the 1800s there was growing concern about the casual and wasteful attitude of early settlers towards the natural forest resource. A commercial eye on the remaining forests led to the Government sponsoring a conference in 1896 with the aim of boosting timber exports. Instead it discovered that the remaining natural forest in New Zealand could not support an export industry - more trees needed to be planted.
By the turn of the century private landowners had planted nearly 20,000 hectares of various tree species in New Zealand.
The First Planting Boom
By 1913 public concern for the future of natural forests and the national timber supply prompted the Government to set up a Royal Commission on Forestry. The essential issues were that the natural forest resource was becoming depleted and was obviously unsuited to large scale commercial tree growing. The country was faced with two choices, either to grow its own future supply through large-scale plantings of introduced species, or to import most of its timber.
The potential value of plantation forestry began to be realised. The State Forest Service was established in 1919 to develop an'afforestation' programme. The Service reviewed the natural forest resources, revised timber sale methods, predicted the timber demand for the next 30 years and set up a planting target of 125,000 hectares of plantation forest by 1935. The new Service made rapid progress and the first planting boom was underway. These sizeable public and private forest plantations became the foundation of commercial forestry.
After the Second World War
The depression years from 1937 to 1952 slowed down the planting momentum to 2,000 hectares per year. By this time however the Forest Service had a sizeable maturing plantation, which would be ready to harvest in the 1950s. To make the most of the new resource the Service began to look at new ways of using the timber. They also recognised that forest management, forest industry education and training, research, soil conservation, protection forest management and development of national parks were issues which also needed attention.
In 1946 the Forest Service started a nine year National Forest Survey which provided much needed basic knowledge of the timber resource and the condition and ecology of New Zealand's forests.
The Second Forestry Boom
Around 1960 the Forest Service reviewed the national supply and demand situation for timber products. This showed a temporary export surplus based on the planting of the 1920s and 30s, but in looking ahead they found there would be a domestic shortage by the end of the century.
It was also in the 1960s that interest generally in plantation forestry increased. The nation began to have concerns about its dependence on meat and wool products and the good prospects of plantation forestry as an export industry became increasingly obvious. By 1973 new plantings had risen to 40,000 hectares a year. The target of one million hectares of plantation forest was reached in 1984.
In contrast to the earlier boom, the new plantings (nearly all radiata pine) were widely spread throughout the country (whereas the previous boom had largely been in the Bay of Plenty). The plantings were also different from those of the 1930s. They were much more intensively pruned and thinned, but were often on steeper, more difficult country and more costly to harvest.
Forests were established roughly equally by the State and private interests, wherever there was a good combination of suitable land, transport and port facilities on which to build export-oriented forest industries.
A Bright Looking Future
The trees of the second planting boom began to enter the market place in the early 1990s and are still maturing. By 2010 production from planted production forests will have almost doubled. This will create enormous opportunities for the expansion of the forestry sector in New Zealand.
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Policy Analyst - Forestry
Innovation and Research
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Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry
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NEW ZEALAND
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