Forest Talk

Local businesses came together in Timaru to ‘save Christmas’, with the wider community helping too.

A community-led proposal was instituted to install a felled pine tree, to replace the fire damaged Christmas tree, at the top of the Bay Hill.

Local business leader, Gordon Handy, was relaxing before Christmas after hearing about the Christmas tree being damaged early the same morning and thought “the community has to have a Christmas tree”.

Memories of the early days in New Zealand’s logging of exotic plantations came easily to Jim Spiers when he was interviewed by Alison Brown back in 2012. 

In 1941 Jim took up one of the first technical trainee positions with the NZ Forest Service and at the onset of his training was sent to Conical Hill Forest, nine miles east of Tapanui in West Otago. The Tapanui area had five distinct plantations, known as the Pomahaka District.

“By the ..... more

A New Zealand-first native tree study has shown the importance of aligning the choice of container grade size to the needs of individual species and planting purpose. The study, to improve propagation and increase the production of indigenous species in nurseries, was the focus of a journal article published in 2025. This work investigated the impact of container grade size on the survival and field performance of 12 key native species – to better understa..... more

Leading forestry businesses, PF Olsen and Forest360, are merging to create the largest independent forest management company in Australasia. As part of the transaction, they will bring on private investor, Adamantem Capital, as an investment partner, alongside existing PF Olsen cornerstone shareholder Quayside Holdings to support the group’s next stage of growth.
 
Together, the group will manage approximately 480,000 hectares of forest and supp..... more

With more than 220 entries from trades workplaces nationwide, industry training organisation Competenz has named Palmerston North’s Sean Martin as its first-ever Most Valuable Coach (MVC) Champion - declaring him the country’s top workplace trainer across engineering, manufacturing, mechanical and primary industries, as well as marine, plastics, HVAC/R, printing and other specialist trades.

He says he was genuinely surprised to learn he had been name..... more

New Forests recently announced its A$700 million Australia New Zealand Forest Fund 2 (ANZFF2) has signed agreements for the final asset dispositions with the sale of two New Zealand forestry assets to APG Asset Management, Europe’s largest pension investor.  

The sale includes a 38% interest in Taieri Forests Limited (TFL), one of the largest producers of softwood logs in the Otago region of New Zealand, with 24,700 hectares of plantable area, c..... more