Totara database starts up

Northland Totara Working Group spokesman Paul Quinlan measures a maturing tree to assess its potential for harvesting. Photo / Michael Bergin

Landowners, farm-foresters, Maori trusts, land management agencies, environmental groups, timber industry stakeholders and potential users of totara timber are being urged to register for a new database being set up by the Northland Totara Working Group.

The totara working group is also inviting them along to see regenerating totara being used for multiple benefits on a dairy farm during a field day at Rehford Farms Ltd, at 1792 Mangakahia Rd about 3km north of Titoki, from 10.30am-2pm on November 23.

Rehford Farms has young stands of totara under management and some mature trees ready for harvest.

Along with learning how management can enhance biodiversity and riparian areas, people attending the field day will hear the latest on the legal issues around milling totara and will be told about the group's vision to develop a sustainable regional industry around totara production.

Northland farm totara is not used at a significant commercial scale at present and the working group's new database will provide stakeholders - from growers to timber processors and end users - with information about legal issues, management and market development initiatives.

In the future, it may also enable the co-ordination of the resource for the necessary scale and continuity of supply.

The database is also expected to enable the collective interests of the totara working group to be represented and heard.

Free registration on the new database can be carried out on the www.tanestrees.org.nz website or by calling Paul Quinlan on 094050052.

The working group was formed in 2005 to promote the sustainable management of the naturally regenerating totara trees and forests on private land in the region.

It encourages the planting and management of this native tree on farms for multiple environmental and economic benefits.

Mr Quinlan said several large projects had been completed over the past 10 years and some were still under way.

The projects had been funded by the Ministry for Primary Industries-administered Sustainable Farming Fund, Reconnecting Northland and supported by Tane's Tree Trust, NZ Landcare Trust, the Northland Regional Council, Far North District Council and others.

The Rehford dairy farm where the field day will be held is among these projects. Funded by Reconnecting Northland and run by the working group, it has involved fencing 6ha of regenerating totara, measuring tree growth after trees were thinned and pruned, submitting an application to the Ministry for Primary Industries to enable sustainable harvests under the Forest Act, and planting 1900 native plants as a demonstration area that extends the existing forest and and enhances indigenous species diversity and water quality monitoring.

There will be a sausage sizzle at the field day, but those attending have been advised to take lunch, a drink, gumboots, a raincoat and 4WD if they have one.