In the heart of New Zealand’s forests, a quiet revolution is taking root. Not in the machinery or the markets, but in the minds of young learners and seasoned loggers alike. Discover Forestry – a national initiative launched three years ago – is turning school field trips into powerful tools for education, connection, and industry transformation. Thanks to a small, dedicated team of forestry educators and with backing from industry. Discover Forestry invites secondary schoolstudents into the forest, not for a casual stroll among the trees, but for hands-on immersion into the world of sustainable logging. They might measure trees, check the water quality and invertebrate life in a creek, and even visit a nursery or sawmill. Hosted by local forestry crews, forestry companies and the wider forestry community, these trips offer students a rare glimpse into the life cycle of a production forest, from seedling to sawmill.
Students and teachers don hard hats and high-vis, meet logging crews and witness harvesting operations up close. They learn about native species, erosion control, replanting strategies, and the science behind water quality testing, as well as the many ways trees and forests are measured and mapped. For many, it’s their first time seeing the balance between economic productivity and ecological stewardship.
So far for 2024 and 2025, Discover Forestry has delivered 20 bus trips for nearly 600 year 10 to 13 students and their teachers, to forests from Northland to Te Anau.
From school buses to skidders: A new kind of field trip
Tauranga Boys High had its first forestry field trip this year where students, hosted by Pat Goeysinsup and Andrew Knudsen from Port Blakely, were taken in vans on the barge across to visit CMH Contracting on Matakana Island. Owner, Conan Hemsworth, is running a ground-based crew and there was much excitement for this trip as not many visitors get to view harvesting operations with barge sites. Following this trip three students signed up for the School of Forestry at Canterbury University, and several are looking at getting into forestry operations. As the school said, “This is the most successful industry trip we have ever been on. We look forward to another trip next year. It absolutely turned some heads.”
In the Manawatū, SMH Logging and Liam Walker from Forest Enterprises recently hosted Fielding Ag High School’s agricultural class in Waitarere Forest near Levin. Students were amazed to meet 19-year-old Kiana Sawyer-White and 17-year-old Cade Vanderwell, both operating machines on a ground-based harvest operation while training under crew owner, Shaun Erni. This is a young, modern crew, and SMH Logging parked up its equipment so students could climb into the cabs, talk to the drivers, and explore the logging site. It was especially inspiring for the students to see operators not much older than themselves and to hear firsthand how they began their logging careers.
Taranaki’s Growing Gold hosted 30 students from Francis Douglas Memorial College, where a hauler became the star attraction. Even the teachers had never seen one operating up close. Forest360’s Taylor Hayston-Carroll guided...
