International Report Highlights Forest Products Important To Meet Climate Targets

The New Zealand Forest Owners Association (NZFOA) says a just released international report has highlighted the value of forest products for meeting greenhouse gas reduction targets.

NZFOA Chief Executive and member of the International Council of Forestry and Paper Associations (ICFPA), David Rhodes, says the attention in New Zealand has been on the huge amount of carbon taken out of the atmosphere by plantation forests.

“But this ICFPA report shows there is also a vast capacity to substitute fossil carbon-based materials with wood-based materials.”

The report found ICFPA members achieved a 24 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions through investments in energy efficiency improvements, an 11 percent increase in the use of renewable or carbon-neutral fuels and a 74 percent decrease in sulphur dioxide emissions compared to the baseline year.

David Rhodes says the report champions the importance of global forestry industries and their benefits beyond commercial timber production.

“Forest products are worth more than six billion dollars a year in export value to New Zealand,” David Rhodes says.

“But our forestry and wood processing industries here in Aotearoa New Zealand provide jobs, and economic development and as well as the potential to assist in reaching climate change targets.”

“Forestry will become increasingly important as the world shifts its dependency away from fossil fuels to sustainable biofuels and carbon-neutral products.”

“A vital part of our Forest and Wood Processing Industry Transformation Plan is founded on an emerging bioeconomy.”

“Trees not only reduce greenhouse gas emissions, wood-based products store carbon and provide the raw material to replace carbon intensive products used for fuel, building, plastics and more.”

The report points to impressive investment into the circular economy too. Wood material left over in the manufacturing process is being used as renewable energy, power pulp and in papermills.

Innovative design enables more paper-based products to be recycled and technology improvements are extracting more value from trees, recovering more fibre and wood residuals than ever before. No part of the tree goes to waste, the report states.

The commitment of Aotearoa New Zealand’s forest industry to conservation and biodiversity features as a case study on kiwi protection in the ICFPA Report.

NZFOA Environment Manager, Rachel Millar says our forestry companies play a key role in protecting the habitat of the national taonga, ngatu roa – the kiwi.

Approximately 7,100 hectares of exotic production forest and a further 640ha of indigenous forest in the Bay of Plenty are now safe habitats for Eastern brown kiwi through the Ōmatoroa Kiwi Project.

The project has been a collaborative effort between the 12,000 landowners of the Ōmataroa Rangitaiki No2 Trust, Save the Kiwi and Rayonier Matariki Forests.

There were thirty Kiwi in the area when the project started in 2008, and that figure has now increased to about 120 birds. Eighty eggs have been collected, and a resulting 60 chicks released back into the wild.

Foresters are regularly targeting rats, possums, cats and mustelids in Ōmataroa Forest with more than 1500 traps across 12,000 hectares.

Save the Kiwi programme and New Zealand Forest Owners Association/New Zealand Farm Forestry Association are now working together to find ways to protect Eastern brown kiwi in another 800,000 hectares of Central and Eastern North Island plantation forest.

“New Zealand’s forestry industry takes its role in managing and caring for the environment very seriously. The success of the Kiwi Project is just one example of an industry that goes out of its way to care for biodiversity and the health of the environment they work in,” Rachel Millar says.

The International Council of Forest and Paper Associations (ICFPA) encompasses some 463 million hectares of Forest Stewardship Council and/or Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC).

© Scoop Media