Séminaire Ephyse

"New Zealand Forests and Forestry: Current Issues and Future Challenges"

In 100 years New Zealand has created a planted forest resource that provides almost all its domestic forest products requirements and is also the third largest merchandise export earner. Starting in the late 1980s a series of reforms and other factors saw a change in ownership from government to private sector and the breaking up of the large vertically integrated companies. Today, New Zealand is a major exporter of logs to Southeast Asia, but many domestic wood processing companies are struggling to be internationally competitive. Competition for land from other primary sectors also means that the profitability of forest growing needs to increase, otherwise the area of planted forests could decrease with the accompanying loss of the ecosystem services that these forests provide. One of the key priorities for the forest industry is to increase the profitability of forest growing, but this could have unintended consequences in terms of wood quality, resource use and risk. This presentation discusses the concept of sustainable intensification in the New Zealand context, but also addresses the wider issue of intensified management in planted forests to meet the increasing global demand for wood products.