Business Central September 2021

| 63 Forest Management North Island Optimism for forest sector growth T T Richard Loader Forest Management North Island has been operating for 15 years with a focus on estates in the Wairarapa and the Hawke’s Bay with some forestry in the Manawatu. FORESTRY B lessed with a generous sense of hu- mour, Glenn Moir says that, conceived under a pine tree, he had an early start in the industry that has become his life. A director of Forest Management Group, Glenn has operated his own forestry business since 1991 and has never seen the industry as bright as it is now. “We have record log and lumber prices glob- ally as well as nationally and there’s this huge boom in construction going on. “The carbon price has just gone over $41.50/NZU and we have a burgeoning bio-en- ergy sector. So its just incredible where we’re going.” International issues impacting on global supply include insect infestations in the North American forests and the Spruce Beetle in Europe. Chinese log supply has also been impacted by relations with Australia and the Russian decision to process all logs rather than export. “This should be our softest time of the year for export logs but it’s not. I’ve not seen the prices that China is currently paying before. The future looks very bright for our industry.” Forest Management North Island (FMNI), part of the Forest Management Group has been operating for the last fifteen years with a focus on estates in the Wairarapa and the Hawke’s Bay with some forestry in the Mana- watu. In total, FMNI manages 18,000 hectares in blocks ranging from four hectares up to two hundred hectares, planted mainly in pinus radiata with a little bit of douglas fir. Of the total estate, FMNI owns about 1200 hectares of its own, while most is owned by farmers and investment companies. “The Southern North Island has a very large number of small to medium forest owners who planted blocks throughout the 1990s. Some of the blocks are quite small, down to one and two hectares.” While FMNI harvest 250,000 tonnes a year, Glenn says the company could be harvesting twice that volume but for lack of human re- source and prefers to focus on doing less and doing it well. “We focus on domestic processors first. A large proportion of our harvest goes to Pan Pac Forest Products, which operates a sawmill just north of Napier. We also supply Kiwi Lumber in Masterton and Dannevirke, Davis Sawmills in Featherston and MitchPine in Levin. The rest goes to export.” Reflecting on the value that forestry delivers to the communities, Glenn says while it really has not been quantified, especially in the two North Island regions FMNI operates, it would be immense. “Talking to some of my colleagues in the East Coast, one in four jobs in that region is based around forestry. “I would hazard a guess that the value to the community is a really high number, especially in a town like Masterton, which has tradition- ally been thought of as agricultural. There are some substantial wood processors there, about thirty logging crews and cartage guys and all the servicing around that. So forestry brings in a huge amount of GDP to the region but as an industry we don’t promote that stuff very well.” Glenn says the industry as a whole needs to promote itself much better than what it has in the past. “The amount of sophistication, science and tech that goes into our industry P 027 5734 592 HAVENDALE LOGGING IS PROUD TO WORK WITH FOREST MANAGEMENT NORTH is huge as is the amount of bio-research that has gone into genetic advancement of seed stock. We’ve just started planting and from what the nurseries are telling me there will be over one hundred million seedlings go in the ground and of that seventy-five million is restocking after harvesting, because the annu- al harvest is around thirty-five million a year. Forest Management Group will plant about three million across both Islands.”