Greater than half the affiliation’s membership have 1300 hectares or much less in forestry, however it additionally represents Māori tribal pursuits equivalent to Ngāi Tahu, the Crown, household trusts and farm foresters.
“We glance after a reasonably broad church, plus a range of administration and possession sorts,” affiliation chief govt Elizabeth Heeg says.
Contemplating the position the sector performs within the export commerce – exports for the June yr totalled $5.75 billion – she agrees forestry has a low profile, besides when issues go improper.
“New Zealand has some wonderful factors for forestry however we even have some challenges,” she says.
“The great factors are that we’re recognized for our sustainability, so it’s our potential to handle forests successfully, and with good environmental outcomes.”
A giant a part of that’s the unique plantation mannequin, adopted over 100 years in the past to assist defend what was left of the indigenous forest property.
Heeg says the trade has benefits over different nations, a lot of that are underneath strain to protect their native estates.
“We have now additionally bought the standard of the timber and understand how shortly we are able to develop it.
“The massive a part of the drawcard so far as pension funds go is its sustainability,” she says.
“The truth that it isn’t related to deforestation is a giant plus for international buyers.”
Why is it that forestry doesn’t appear to get the identical traction as, say, farming?
Heeg says it’s cultural.
“New Zealand identifies itself as a farming nation and, to be truthful for over 100 years we had been clearing the bush to make method for farms, so it’s a cultural shift to determine ourselves as bush folks, so to talk.
“I do assume that that connection to farming might work effectively alongside forestry, however I don’t assume forestry proper now could be included in the identical sphere, essentially, even supposing we’ve so many farm foresters on the market who’re rising a hectare or extra of forests on their farm.
“In case you go to a spot like Rotorua, I feel folks perceive fairly clearly what the worth proposition is for forestry, however on the nationwide degree we don’t get the identical form of profile.”
Infrequently, forestry attracts the improper form of publicity.
In October, meat processor Alliance Group shut its Smithfield plant in Timaru due to land-use change.
For “land-use change” learn “forestry”, because it’s the growth of bushes that has pitched the forestry and pastoral sectors in opposition to one another.
“Sadly, we should face the truth of declining sheep processing numbers because of land-use change,” Alliance mentioned on the time.
NZ Beef and Lamb has lengthy lamented the lack of farmland to forestry, notably for carbon farming.
The farmer-funded organisation commissioned Orme & Associates to replace the variety of farms offered with the intention to plant forestry since their final report in August 2023, which lined the interval 2017 to the top of 2022.
They discovered {that a} additional 51,291 hectares recognized for afforestation had been offered for the reason that finish of 2022.
Heeg strongly refutes the concept that forestry is chargeable for meat plant closures.
“I positively don’t assume that forestry is chargeable for that, and we are able to demonstrably show that it’s not chargeable for the closure of meat works.
“I don’t assume that anyone disputes that there are actual headwinds within the rural group proper now.
“Our log costs are down and we’ve an exodus to Australia of a few of our proficient folks, so plenty of the challenges that farmers are experiencing are the identical challenges being confronted by forestry.”
Heeg says her sector remains to be not experiencing the identical degree of afforestation seen within the Nineties however she concedes that land-use change is going on in rural communities.
“However I feel it’s these farmers’ proper to alter their land use to one thing that’s proper economically.”
Forestry discovered itself within the gun for the harm executed to communities from “slash” – stumps and undesirable wooden that worn out East Coast bridges after Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023.
“The essential factor that we as a forestry sector are attempting to work with communities on is how we make it possible for we’ve good practices, but additionally how we’re going to cope with these more and more intense storm occasions which are the results of local weather change,” she says.
The sector additionally will get some flak from critics of carbon forestry – the place growers plant pines purely for the aim of carbon sequestration and carbon credit – nothing else.
Heeg says carbon forestry executed effectively is a crucial instrument within the package for addressing the local weather disaster.
She says that as a sector, one of many greatest issues dealing with forestry is value volatility.
Because it stands, log costs can fluctuate wildly relying on demand in its greatest market – China – which is struggling via a property hunch.
Heeg says extra home processing executed onshore would go a good distance in the direction of taking value volatility out of the combo.
“With the decline in China, extra of our industrial grade timber goes into vitality manufacturing – pellets – and a few companies are wanting into creating an vitality log.
“You need the timber to draw the best worth use that it will probably go for, so timber that used to enter making concrete boxing in China and used solely as soon as can now be used right here for vitality to decarbonise New Zealand companies, then that’s in all probability a extra environment friendly use.
“That’s the form of dialog that we need to be having, as a result of in case you course of the timber right here in New Zealand you can even course of all of the residues that can be utilized for different issues as effectively.”
“The massive driver for New Zealand is that we’re the world’s greatest exporter of softwood logs.
“These [weather] occasions may help the trade have a look at itself and see if we’re doing every little thing we are able to and doing issues the best method and [whether there] will be room for enchancment.”
The log market is extra challenged today due to a extra subdued economic system in China.
“I don’t count on issues to rocket again to these document highs that we noticed a number of years in the past, however these had been irregular instances.
“That’s the place having a home market as effectively is useful, though they’re having their very own challenges, notably from a prices perspective.”
Scott Downs, PF Olsen’s common supervisor gross sales and advertising, says forestry doesn’t appear to get the airtime that pastoral farming does.
“I feel it’s as a result of it’s so diversified – there are such a lot of totally different voices.
“There may be the NZFOA however we definitely don’t have the political clout that the farming trade has.”
PF Olsen has 130 employees, plus 1000’s of contractors at numerous instances of the yr.
The expertise abroad confirmed that a number of land makes use of labored finest for the setting.
Downs says sawmills are struggling in the mean time.
“The market is oversupplied with structural lumber so 40% of the structural sawmill capability shouldn’t be getting used, so the sawmills are slowing down.”
And logs are buying and selling at round $120 per JAS cubic metre on the wharf gate for A grade logs – passable however effectively down from their peak.
For export logs the two-year rolling common has been trending down since 2021.
Future demand from China is the massive concern, and it’s wanting unlikely that costs will return to their current highs of $140 plus per JAS metre.
Downs says that’s cause to get biofuel up and working.
About 40% of New Zealand logs are consumed domestically and 60% are exported.
Of the logs for home processing, nearly all of that is used for building functions. Of the 60% exported, China takes the lion’s share to make use of primarily for building and type work.
TOP 20
1) Kaingaroa Timberlands: 178,00 ha
The New Zealand Tremendous Fund’s largest funding is Kaingaroa Timberlands, wherein it has a 42% stake. Masking round 178,000 hectares of planted forest, Kaingaroa is recognised as one of many world’s premier softwood plantations and is a serious provider of logs to the home and export markets. NZ Tremendous’s funding companions in Kaingaroa embody PSP Investments – one among Canada’s largest pension funding managers – and Kakano Investments, a collective of iwi teams that are additionally part-owners of the underlying land. The forest is managed by Timberlands, the possession of which is broadly just like the property’s.
2) Manulife: 164,000 ha
Manulife Funding Administration Forest Administration MFM (NZ) — previously Hancock Forest Administration New Zealand – is a part of the massive Canadian multinational insurance coverage and monetary providers firm, Manulife. MFM NZ has holdings in its personal proper, and manages forests for others. If its owned and managed forests had been taken collectively, Manulife would rival Timberlands in dimension, being chargeable for about 220,000 ha. It has investments in Taumata Plantations which has 121,000ha in productive forest, and Tiaki Plantations, which has 13,000ha. Manulife additionally manages about 42,000ha for the Ontario Academics Pension Plan – OTPP New Zealand Forest Investments – and Waonui Forest Investments. Manulife operates in additional than 20 nations, with vital companies in Canada, the U.S., Japan, China, and Hong Kong. In its newest annual report. Manulife says it’s the world’s largest institutional supervisor of “pure” capital, consisting of nature-based belongings equivalent to timber and agriculture, with C$1 trillion ($1.2t) in belongings underneath administration.
3) Rayonier Matariki: 166,000 ha
New York Inventory Trade-listed Rayonier Inc established itself in New Zealand greater than 25 years in the past. Rayonier Matariki Forests is managed by Rayonier New Zealand, a subsidiary of Rayonier Inc, and is the third largest forestry firm in New Zealand with roughly 120,000 ha of plantations on 166,000ha landbase. Rayonier established itself in New Zealand in 1988, after the Authorities introduced the privatisation of the Forest Service, initially as a log export operation. It bought its first forest in 1991. The guardian firm is a number one timberland actual property funding belief (REIT). The corporate says it has turn into the second-largest timber REIT with estates within the US and New Zealand totalling simply over one million hectares. Rayonier was based in 1926 in Shelton, Washington and right this moment is headquartered in Wildlight, Florida.
4) PF Olsen: 160,000 ha
PF Olsen doesn’t personal forests however manages 160,000ha for a variety of various purchasers. In 2022, Quayside Holdings – the funding car for the Bay of Loads Regional Council – purchased 44% of PF Olsen from non-public fairness agency Direct Capital, which had been a shareholder for 11 years. PF Olsen has been round for greater than 50 years. The corporate additionally has a big operation in Australia, managing 212,000 ha. PF Olsen crops about 40% of all new forestry in New Zealand. The corporate manages the most important harvesting portfolio in New Zealand and Australia – 2.4m tonnes and a pair of.7m tonnes, respectively – a yr.
5) Taumata Plantations: 120,000ha
Taumata Plantations encompasses the previous Carter Holt Harvey’s forest estates within the central North Island and Northland. About half its logs are absorbed by the home market. Taumata is 42% owned by Manulife. Australian (28%), United Kingdom (15%) US buyers personal the the remainder. Taumata’s forests are all within the North Island – the most important being the Kinleith Forest within the Central North Island. Taumata Plantations is chaired by Murray Taggart, the previous chair of Alliance Group – New Zealand’s greatest sheepmeat exporter.
6) Ernslaw One: 95,000 ha
Ernslaw One is a vertically built-in softwood plantation firm, rising and managing over 95,000ha of bushes. The corporate says it has the most important and most numerous asset base and is the most important grower of Douglas-fir in New Zealand. Ernslaw One is a part of the Oregon Group, which is owned by the Malaysia-based Tiong household, together with its subsidiary firm and processing arm, Winstone Pulp Worldwide, which closed two mills within the Ruapehu District in October. The mills had been concerned in lumber and pulp manufacturing.
7) NZ Carbon Farming: 65,000 ha
NZ Carbon Farming owns 65,000 ha of forest land in NZ designated as a everlasting carbon forest exercise and actively manages an additional 45,000 ha on behalf of lease holders. NZ Carbon Farming, which has been going for over a decade, is the nation’s greatest carbon farmer. The corporate – arrange by Matt Walsh and Bruce Miller – crops bushes for carbon credit. They’re by no means harvested. The corporate says its final aim is to permit the land to revert again into indigenous forest.
8) OneFortyOne: 63,000 ha
The corporate is a trans-Tasman operation – shaped in 2012 following the acquisition of a 105-year lease of 80,000 hectares of plantation belongings from the South Australian Authorities. The title OneFortyOne comes from the 141st meridian east line working between the South Australian and Victorian border. In 2018, OneFortyOne acquired Nelson Forests Restricted and Kaituna Mill in New Zealand, with approval from the New Zealand Abroad Funding Workplace. The Nelson forest, first planted in 1927, is in its fourth rotation.
9) Ngai Tahu Forestry: 54,000ha
Ngai Tahu Forestry manages 54,000 ha of forests throughout North Canterbury, Otago and the West Coast. Ngāi Tahu Forestry was established in 2000 when Ngāi Tahu Holdings Company bought land topic to Crown Forestry licences. The corporate harvests and provides logs to varied home and export markets. It’s also concerned in carbon forestry and Proseed NZ, which produces improved selective seeds to the forestry trade and nurseries all through New Zealand and Australia.
10) Summit Forests: 50,000ha
Summit Forests, owned by Japan’s Sumitomo Corp, began its New Zealand operations in 2013. The property is unfold all through Northland, the Coromandel, Whanganui, and the Gisborne and East Coast areas. In 2013, Summit bought the previous Juken New Zealand Ltd Forest property (36,000 ha) in Northland.
11) Juken NZ: 40,000 ha
Juken NZ has been concerned within the New Zealand forestry and wooden processing industries for the final 25 years. It makes wooden merchandise from selectively planted, managed and harvested radiata pine for native and export markets. Juken is a subsidiary of Japan’s WoodOne Ltd, a world housing supplies and componentry firm. Juken NZ has three processing mills in New Zealand together with 40,000 hectares of forest estates situated within the North Island. The corporate intensively prunes our forests with a view to develop a excessive worth clearwood useful resource for processing.
12) Port Blakely: 39,000 ha
Port Blakely Ltd., NZ Forestry, a division of American timber firm Port Blakely, owns and manages forestland on the South and North Islands. The corporate grows, harvests, and frequently replants radiata pine and Douglas fir. Each woods are offered domestically in New Zealand and in log markets all through Asia.
13) Roger Dickie: 38,000 ha
Roger Dickie NZ manages over $1 billion value of New Zealand forestry belongings and greater than 38,000 hectares, for each international and native buyers. The corporate has been going for over 50 years. The corporate affords syndicated possession and shole asset possession for personal and institutional Buyers.
14) Tasman Pine: 36,200 ha
Tasman Pine Forests, a Sumitomo Forestry subsidiary, has 36,200 ha of unique plantations within the prime of the South Island. The bulk (97%) of the planted forest space is established in radiata pine with the steadiness in Douglas fir and a few small areas of different unique species together with eucalyptus. Tasman manages the plantation property to provide wooden, which is utilised in each home and worldwide markets for a spread of end-uses together with sawn timber, laminated veneer lumber (LVL), medium density fibreboard (MDF), posts and poles.
15) Pan Pac: 35,000ha
Pan Pac is the most important forestry grower in Hawke’s Bay. A lot of the forests are subsequent to the ranges, so that they typically border on Division of Conservation land. These are ex-state forests, and from north to south are: Mohaka, Esk, Kaweka and Gwavas. Tangoio, the opposite substantial forest, is coastal and situated across the Pan Pac mill and Waipatiki. Pan Pac is owned by Japan’s Oji Group, a world paper, pulp, packaging and forestry enterprise, with operations all through Asia, North and South America, Europe and Oceania. Final yr, Oji mentioned it deliberate to completely shut the Kinleith PM6 paper machine. In September, Oji mentioned it will shut its paper recycling mill at Penrose.
16) Aratu: 35,000 ha
Aratu is a forestry property and asset administration enterprise based mostly within the Gisborne District. Aratu manages 35,000 hectares of forestry plantation land throughout Te Tairāwhiti. In July 2019, Hikurangi Forest Farms was bought by New Forests, an Australian-based, worldwide and sustainable forestry funding supervisor, on behalf of its institutional funding purchasers. The corporate was renamed Aratu Forests.
17) Forest Administration NZ: 35,000 ha
Forest Administration (NZ) is a family-owned and operated firm. Established in 1974, the corporate manages greater than 120 forests with a cumulative internet stocked space of 35,000 hectares. The species it manages are predominantly Pinus radiata nevertheless there’s an rising space of different species equivalent to Douglas fir, Cypress, Redwood, Eucalyptus, Japanese Cedar and native bushes being established.
18) Crown Forestry: 30,000 ha
Crown Forestry is a part of the Ministry for Major Industries (MPI). It has a business focus, managing a portfolio of the Crown’s forestry belongings to attain the very best return from the forests and meet the Crown’s authorized and contractual obligations. Crown Forestry is a direct participant within the New Zealand forest trade. It has a separate position to the coverage, regulation, and repair supply roles carried out by MPI. Crown-owned forests and afforestation leases. The forest property consists of 55 forests with a complete planted space of round 30,000 hectares. The forests are situated all through the North Island and in Otago and Westland. Within the case of Crown-owned land, the land (and generally bushes) are transferred to profitable claimant teams as a part of Te Tiriti/Treaty of Waitangi settlements.
19) Wenita: 30,000 ha
Wenita is the most important producer of forest merchandise in Otago supplying native and worldwide markets. It has three predominant forests in Otago – Mt Allan, Berwick, and Otago Coast. Wenita was shaped in 1990 to purchase forest slicing rights from the Authorities. Wenita is 100% owned by Taieri Forests Restricted, which is owned by three shareholders: New Forests (ANZFF2), Stichting Pensioenfonds ABP (APG) and Pension Safety Fund (PPF) Funding Holdings 1 Restricted.
20) Forest Enterprises: 20,000ha
Masterton-based Forest Enterprises manages forestry investments for six,500 largely New Zealand buyers, working as a restricted partnership. Forest Enterprises is New Zealand’s main full service forest administration and funding providers firm. Since 1972, it has been serving to folks develop their wealth via reasonably priced direct investments in a few of New Zealand’s most distinctive radiata pine plantation forests. It manages the forests from institution to reap.
(Compiled from publicly out there data).
Jamie Grey is an Auckland-based journalist, masking the monetary markets and the first sector. He joined the Herald in 2011.
