Fur Council chairman Neil Mackie said international demand for possum fur yarn was strong.
The industry generated $100million to $150million a year. Most of the garments were bought by tourists, and the industry employed 1500 people.
DoC director-general Lou Sanson said the agreement would also benefit conservation.
Possums ate 21,000 tonnes of New Zealand bush a night. DoC spent more than $10million a year controlling them, but it was only done intensively on 10 per cent of the 8.5 million hectares it looked after. "There are millions of hectares of bush that we simply can't get to," Mr Sanson said.
Hunters and trappers could help on land where possums were not controlled, and also on buffer areas surrounding intensively trapped and poisoned areas.
Mr Cox said they would not be interested in working in areas where possum numbers were low.
And he said numbers were generally lower than they used to be, due to work by regional councils and DoC.
His brother Bo was buying possum fur for $105 a kilo, which he said made it barely worth collecting. Possum skins were only financially worthwhile if they were top quality, and worth $15 to $20 each.
Mr Cox estimated there were only about six fulltime possum hunters left in the Wanganui, but also some who worked part time, for some spare cash.