Eucalypt forests may rise again

DURABLE POSTS: Gisborne eucalypt growers have produced timber that has been part of successful trials in Marlborough on hardwood posts used in vineyards. Over 10 years they ahve stood up very well. File picture

GISBORNE and the East Coast could be as little as two years away from becoming the spear-point of an industry that could boost New Zealand’s wood exports by $2 billion through the long-term reintroduction of extinct eucalypt forests.

A trial site to test the potential of planting ground-durable eucalypts in this region was set up at Te Koawa Station in 2010 under the New Zealand Dryland Forests Initiative and NZFI project manager Paul Millen said a Field Day would be held at the station to reveal details of exciting results gathered there next month.

The Ministry of Primary Industries, who will fund three Field Days at three trial site across the country, has estimated the eucalypt hardwood industry could be worth $2 billion nationally by 2050.

Mr Millen said the project also had spin-off benefits for the Manuka Honey industry and beekeeping industries, as well as further benefits for foresters under the Emissions Trading Scheme.

“We’ve had a lot of support from the farm forestry sector in Gisborne. We think Gisborne is very suitable for growing these eucalypt species. These species have been tested in Gisborne, and there are a number of other sites now where I have seen people growing them as a hobby but it had never been picked up by the forestry researchers.

“Really Gisborne already has some of the highest productivity for Radiata pine forestry and we anticipate it will be similar for these eucalypts, certainly on some of the lower altitude sites.

“We think there are some really significant benefits from our programme, and we aim through our research to have a significant resource planted. For somewhere like Gisborne, you would want about 20,000ha to establish it at scale.”

Established in 2008The project was established in 2008 by Mr Millen in association with the University of Canterbury, the Marlborough Research Centre Trust and Ngai Tahu Property Holdings-owned Proseed NZ, as well as Juken NZ. It has just gained another seven years of funding from the Ministry of Business Innovation and Enterprise to continue a traditional selective breeding programme using parent seeds sourced from Australia.

Mr Millen said the project involved blue sky research on species that had not previously been bred before but had come up with “some very good results”.

He was confident selected seeds could be available for planting with the next two to three years.

“There is huge potential for hardwood. The bigger question in the Gisborne region is you do have a port and forestry well established as an industry up there so there’s another reason why we think it is suitable.

"There is a lot of industry around Manuka honey and one of the benefits that eucalypts offer is that they are flowering.

"In fact they are closely-related to Manuka, and funnily back in the Miocene eucalypts had evolved in new Zealand. They went extinct in the Ice Age but they are closely allied to a lot of New Zealand plants.

“What we’re hoping will come from this is the eucalypts will support the bee populations and then there will be potential for the honey industry once these plantations are established at scale. It’s pretty exciting.

“There are just so many benefits, even under the ETS. These durable eucalypts are very dense, so on a volume basis, if you have a cubic metre of eucalypts compared to Radiata you have twice the amount of carbon, simply because there is hardly any air in them.

"The Government is doing a review of the ETS and if that gives a real incentive for new forestry planting to increase their carbon then these are ideally suited.”