Can forestry change before calamity forces it to?

Temuera Hall CMInstD will never forget the night devastating winds brought down about 4,000 hectares of forest within the interests he helps govern. “That was five years’ worth of revenue,” he says.

The damage left his board facing the immediate questions of recovery, replanting and future risk. Wind has long been the most material physical threat to forests in the region. Climate change may eventually make fire a greater concern, Hall says, but the board had already seen what wind could do.

“We started with the soil first and asked what was best for the environment,” he says.

That question is now shaping a proposed 500-hectare trial of a different kind of forest – one planted with multiple species, selected for their root structures, resilience and potential use in bioenergy and biochemicals.

The project is small beside the vast Pinus radiata forests of the central North Island. It gives the trust room to test assumptions that would be much harder to challenge across a large forestry operation built around one species, one supply chain and established markets.

“We’ve become a test case,” Hall says. 

Changing the order of decisions

Hall chairs Opepe Farm Trust and Te Kākano Whakatipu Ltd, is a director of CNI Iwi Holdings and is managing director of indigenous ethical investment business Tahito.

He says his thinking is informed by He Ara Waiora, a Māori wellbeing framework developed for the Treasury. It places stewardship, relationships and long-term wellbeing at the centre of decision-making.

Across those roles, his approach begins with a hierarchy that differs from the one governing many commercial decisions. 
“A Māori worldview puts nature before people and people before finance,” he says.  

That means beginning with the needs of the environment rather than treating environmental issues primarily as risks to people or financial performance.

Commercial performance still matters. The entities he works with are audited and expected to make sound investments, but financial return does not automatically take precedence over the condition of the whenua or the interests of future generations.

Hall argues that many governance frameworks still start from a human-centred perspective. “ESG is all premised around risk upon humans, not risk on the environment,” he says.

Instead of asking how environmental effects may alter a forecast return, the discussion begins with what the land can sustain and what kind of activity will leave it in better condition.

“The two key things that have to be bedded down and supported by your beneficial owners or shareholders are putting the environment first and thinking intergenerationally,” Hall says.

Those principles may be familiar within Māori entities, but applying them still requires leadership. Owners and beneficiaries must be willing to accept that some benefits will not arrive immediately and may not be captured in a conventional measure of return.

“Just saying it is Māori and then implementing it still takes work,” he says. “You have to convince people to think beyond themselves.”

A different kind of forest

New Zealand’s forestry system has been built around Pinus radiata. Forest management, transport, processing and export markets all assume a tree of a particular form, size and specification.

That system has delivered reliable returns in the past, but Hall questions whether it remains sufficient as costs rise, climate risks intensify and overseas buyers seek different products.

Much of New Zealand's softwood leaves the country as a relatively low-value commodity, and Hall believes the sector needs to capture more value from what it grows.

“We tend to put it on a ship and wave it goodbye,” he says.

The energy forest project starts from a different view of what a tree may be grown for. Rather than waiting 20 to 30 years for conventional logs, selected species could potentially be harvested earlier and processed for bioenergy, biochemicals and other higher-value products.

“You’re no longer growing the tree for four-by-two and poles,” Hall says. “You’re growing it for the future – where we think the future of trees is going to be.”

The work remains exploratory.  

The trust is looking at which species could grow together, support the soil and withstand severe wind. The commercial case will depend on future demand and the development of processing markets.

If those markets do not emerge as expected, Hall says carbon credits provide a fallback. But they are not the project’s main purpose.

The trial also exposes a constraint for larger forestry businesses. Changing species is not simply a planting decision. Mills, roads, equipment, contracts and buyers have all been designed around radiata pine.

“It’s easy to do it in a small trial,” he says. “It’s really hard to do in a large organisation that is wedded to Pinus radiata.” 

Governing the landscape in front of you

Hall is wary of treating forestry as though its risks are the same everywhere.

Public debate is often shaped by images of slash damage and erosion on the East Coast. Those events deserve scrutiny, he says, but they do not describe every forest or soil type.

Central North Island forestry operates in different conditions. Its boards need to understand local soils, elevation, wind exposure, water quality and the communities living around the forest.

The Lake Taupō nitrogen management programme has also influenced how local landowners think. Long before carbon reporting became widespread, farms and forests around the lake were measuring and managing nitrogen to protect water quality.

The programme created an environmental discipline in which land-use choices were already being measured against ecological limits.

Putting nature first does not, however, mean leaving it alone.

Introduced weeds, wilding trees and generations of human intervention have altered the landscape. Even native regeneration requires planning, investment and active management.

“If you’re going to put the environment first, you can’t just leave it,” Hall says. “You still have to have a management programme.”

Without measures for soil quality, community impact and other external effects, boards cannot tell whether their decisions are improving the condition of the land and the lives of the people connected to it.

Before the next calamity

Hall believes the forestry sector will change. The question is what forces that change.

Rising operating costs and uncertain log returns are already testing the traditional model. New products and markets may offer better returns, while mixed-species forests may improve resilience. But established systems are difficult to unwind, particularly when capital, infrastructure and expertise are tied to the status quo.

The aftermath of a major wind event gave one board an opportunity to start differently – on a scale where experimentation remained possible and the cost of failure could be contained.

“Is change going to come about through human adaptation and innovation,” Hall asks, “or only once we’ve experienced some real calamity?”