The NZ Government Is Intent On Planting 1 Billion Trees

Crown Forestry is looking for land to plant as part of the Government’s One Billion Trees programme. We want to talk to landowners considering commercial radiata pine planting and who have blocks of land that:

are a minimum size of 200 plantable hectares have not been plantation forest before have reasonable fertility have easy access within the block and to district roads and state highways have terrain suitable for current forest harvesting systems
are identified as suitable for production forestry in the relevant district council and regional council land use and water plans if there are weeds, these can be controlled by aerial spraying. Crown Forestry, a business unit of the Ministry for Primary Industries, would lease the land or enter into a forestry joint venture for a one rotation (30 year) term. The Crown would pay for all establishment and management costs over the lifetime of the crop and pay a negotiated rent to the landowner. Rents will reflect the quality of the land, proximity to ports or wood processing plants and the costs Crown Forestry expect to pay over the lifetime of the crop. The landowner would retain all rights to any carbon credits.

Any areas of regenerating native forest within the block would be left as they are as unplanted enclaves within the forest.

Crown Forestry will carry out a brief screening of nominated land. If it appears suitable we will prepare a forestry feasibility study that will include a full financial report. This information will be shared with the landowner and will form the basis of a lease or forestry joint venture proposal for the landowners to consider. Proposals will be tailored to reflect local issues. Once an agreement has been reached Crown Forestry will commence forestry operations on the land.