Introduction

The West Coast of New Zealand's South Island is renowned for its magnificent scenery and unique lifestyle, which have attracted considerable tourism investment. It is also well known for its heavy rainfall, which encourages lush growth in natural forests.

These natural forests supplied most of the local wood processing industry until 1996, at which time the harvested volume decreased significantly. Harvesting from Crown-owned natural forests will cease by 31 March 2002. The maturing planted forests are now the main source of log supply on the West Coast, with the supply forecast to increase significantly over the next five years.

West Coast - An Overview

The West Coast region includes all the land within the Buller, Grey and Westland Districts, a total of 2 335 151 hectares. The Grey District has the largest population at 13 623, with Buller at 10 311 and Westland at 10 203 (2001 Census).

Agriculture, fishing, mining, tourism and forestry are major sources of employment in the region, with the forestry workforce skilled in all aspects of planted production forestry. The region also has a small primary forest processing industry based on local forest resources. The use of the natural forest resource has been greatly reduced, but the planted production forest harvest is expanding so most of the skills and infrastructure have been transferred to the planted forest based industry.

The region's forestry sector has some distinctive local characteristics:

The Department of Conservation manages 83 percent of the total land area and about 94 percent of the total natural forest area in the region.
Timberlands West Coast Ltd manages 84 percent of the planted production forest area.
The natural forest harvest has reduced from around 120 000 cubic metres for the year ended 31 March 1995 to 25 000 cubic metres for the year ended 31 March 2001.
The West Coast's planted production forest harvest is forecast to increase from around 183 000 cubic metres in 2001 to approximately 350 000 cubic metres per annum by 2005.
Radiata pine has medium growth rates and produces low-density wood of light colouration and high sheen.
Most of the planted forest resource is located on low productivity sites.
The most productive sites for planted production forests are on lower altitude glacial and alluvial terraces. The least productive sites are on poorly-drained gleyed podzols and higher altitude terraces.

Topography

The West Coast is a relatively narrow coastal strip of land 500 kilometres long, containing the catchments of all rivers flowing to the Tasman Sea between Kahurangi and Awarua Points (except the Buller River above the Upper Buller Gorge). It is bounded by mountain ranges to the east, north and south.

The lowland is mainly dissected hill country interspersed with fertile river flats. Inland, between the river flats and the hill country, is a series of glacial outwash terraces that decrease in fertility with increasing altitude and age. Terraces with poor drainage and infertile podzol soils are known as "pakihi".

Soils

The West Coast soils are generally hill country or glacial terrace soils. The terrace soils are often poorly drained and have low or very low fertility. However, the glacial terrace soils respond to drainage and fertilising.

The hill soils are normally better drained and more fertile, particularly those on uplifted marine sediments and gravels. Most soils require significant amounts of fertiliser (such as nitrogen, phosphate, potassium, magnesium and boron) to sustain good tree growth. The major river valleys offer high-quality soils.

Climate

The West Coast has a high annual rainfall, ranging from 2000 millimetres near the coast to more than 4500 millimetres in the foothills of the ranges. Inland valleys behind the coastal ranges are in partial rain shadows and receive 2000 to 2800 millimetres of rainfall per annum.

The prevailing westerly winds are salt-laden and often accompanied by rain. Northerly winds bring warm, humid conditions with heavy rain, while southerly conditions are cool and dry. Long spells of warm, dry, easterly winds occur occasionally.

Contact for Enquiries