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A plantation forest is a man-made forest grown as a crop. Usually seedlings of a single preferred species are planted.
Plantation forestry is New Zealand’s third largest export earner. New Zealand’s annual wood harvest is expected to reach 40 million m3 over the next couple of decades. It currently stands at 21 million m3 (2004).
To give an impression of the scale of this harvest volume, a typical New Zealand house has about 20 m3 of timber in its construction.
New Zealand plantation forests are usually radiata pine. The forests are described as sustainable, renewable and alternative:
Sustainable: because over a long period of time no more wood is removed than the forest can replace and without unduly depleting the site on which the forest stands.
Renewable: because the crop is replanted on a 25-30 year rotation.
Alternative: because pine timber is now a substitute for the previous use of native timbers.
When forests are growing they act as a ‘carbon sink’ because they remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as part of the process of photosynthesis. In this way, forests help to offset the greenhouse effect.
Great care is taken to preserve soil and water and, with immediate replanting, a continuous cycle occurs. |