New Zealand is a sustainable world leader in that almost all of our wood fibre needs are supplied from plantations established for that purpose, ie, tree farms. These forests cover an area of 1.8 million hectares and produce over 99% of the country’s wood. In fact, we generate a vast surplus of sustainably produced wood and paper products and are able to export this to other countries. We thereby save a few of someone else’s natural forests.
There are differing attitudes between Kiwis and overseas visitors towards pine trees. Many Kiwis consider them almost to be weeds, due to their fast growth and large numbers now in our country. Also, there is a feeling amoungst many Kiwis that they are not “real” New Zealand trees due to their introduced status. In an irony, perhaps this makes it easier for Kiwis to understand the tree farming concept and not be horrified by seeing harvesting operations. They know from experience these will soon be followed by replanting operations, and shortly after another healthy fledging crop. Just like wheat and corn fields.
Visitors from the northern hemisphere however are familiar seeing native pine trees in their own home environment. They do not share the view of them held by many Kiwis as being weeds. Seeing them cut is as painful for them as ourselves seeing native Kauri fall (not that that, fortunately, is a likely sight these days). In this respect Kiwis and visitors can learn a little from each other. Pines are not weeds. However farmed pines can be managed like any agricultural crop for the benefit of humanity and the planet.
Of great weight now is the carbon-offsetting value of New Zealand’s plantation forests. Pine trees are like giant self-expanding straws that we poke vertically into the ground and they merrily suck CO2 out of the atmosphere for 30 years. They literally suck it straight into their trunks which end up towering sky-wards as space-efficient storage vessels for that nasty carbon. Even Discovery Channel would be challenged to come up with a better engineering solution for global warming.
New Zealand has been planting trees on a large scale for a century already and is a world leader in the technology.
The planted forest technology for radiata pine is probably the most advanced of any potential tree species. The evolution and success of radiata pine in New Zealand has major implications and lessons for the rest of the world.
says pine expert Winkie Sutton. For example, New Zealand’s plantation forests enable us to be one of the few OECD nations able to provide significant offsets for carbon emission increases.
One of Al Gore’s 7 climate change pledges is “plant trees”. New Zealand can proudly extend the famous eco-motto of Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle by adding the 4th R – “Replant”. Over the last century, New Zealanders have planted more trees per capita than in any other country on the planet.
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Tags: 100% Pure New Zealand, Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth, clean & green, clean & green NZ, Clean and Green, clean and green NZ, Kaitiakitanga, plantation forests