Forest Talk

With Mental Health Awareness Week running from 26 September to 2 October, Safetree says it’s a good time to think about how forestry can better look after the mental wellbeing of workers. In particular, the impact business decisions and working arrangements can have on workers’ wellbeing.

“For example, we've had feedback about the pressure  contractors and workers in Tairāwhiti are under due to low log prices”, says Acting Natio..... more

Economic growth in Marlborough for the year to June 2022 outpaced the national average according to the latest quarterly economic data released by Infometrics.

Marlborough’s GDP (gross domestic product) was up 1.4%, more than the 0.9% average for the country. However, compared to the same quarter in 2021, Marlborough was the second hardest hit region in the country with economic activity down 5.3%.

Significant constraints placed a squeeze on gr..... more

In its first year, iwi-led environmental charity, Te Tapu o Tāne owned by Ki Papatipu Rūnanga o Murihiku, has grown, sold and planted more than 150,000 plants and is moving on to some of the biggest restoration projects in the region. Its mahi involves regenerating and reinstating wetlands, riparian margins, and bringing back native forestry cover. Its area of interest is throughout the Murihiku takiwā which stretches ki uta ki tai (from the mount..... more

Some 16 million new trees, mainly pine, will be planted in Gippsland in eastern Victoria as Australia’s Victorian government invests $120 million in a soft timber plantation in the state's southeast.

Hancock Victorian Plantations will match the spend to buy, lease and manage more than 14,000 hectares of softwood plantations, an area equivalent to 7000 Melbourne Cricket Grounds.

The state government claims the new plantation will underpin 2000 n..... more

Separated by World War 1, two brothers nonetheless shared the same dream – to start producing lumber after the war. While one was sadly killed in action, the dream lived on and Sutherland Co was born over a Century ago in 1920 in the Happy Valley Tuatapere.

The mill moved a number of times, with a second mill set up in more

The announcement that Fonterra is taking another step in its transition to low carbon production with replacement of a coal boiler at its Waitoa site in the Waikato with a 30 MW wood biomass boiler, builds on the trend of food processors to adopt bioenergy solutions says Brian Cox, Executive Officer of the Bioenergy Association.

“The use of renewable biomass to replace coal to produce heat arises because of the increased use of forest residues, instead of leaving ..... more