PART A : INTRODUCTION & THE INTERGENERATIONAL BOUTIQUE FOREST
A wall of green slices the Wairau Valley as regimented pine trees march up a hill. In the Rai Valley, a boutique forest’s mixed-species trees are nurtured for their amenity value now, and their potential as high-value building timber in the future. Meanwhile, a couple with a dream of ecological forests funded by bonds and raised by communities are focused on protection rather than profit.
Worlds apart in many ways, these three forestry projects were all commended by judges in this year’s Marlborough Environment Awards as examples of good business paired with sound environmental management.
The judging visits coincided with a furore over the forestry industry in Marlborough, after a major late-December storm sent trees and logs tumbling down hillsides, tweaking havoc on farms, roads and rivers. The event tarnished the reputation of an industry that was already a highly visible target.
Consultant Vern Harris, the forester behind the Hillesden Forestry Partnership entry in the awards, says like any industry, forestry has those who are “good, bad and indifferent”, but he argues that the storm damage at Wakamarina and Onamalutu was a result of “time and place” rather than management of any particular area. “You work to the rules, you try to maintain the standards, but there are events that occur that you cannot logically engineer to keep ahead of.”
Fellow entrant David Kepes, who grows mixed-species trees on a boutique block, is more critical of what he sees as a monoculture endangering erosion-prone slopes. “If you drive to Nelson or come into Picton on the ferry, it’s an absolute disgrace the way we have managed our forests. I can’t see how it is sustainable.”
THE “INTERGENERATIONAL BOUTIQUE FOREST”
David and his wife Lynda see their Rai Valley forestry block in planks, not logs, and their accounts with a triple bottom line, where the social, economic and environmental costs and benefits of the operations are accounted for.
David Kepes and some of his milled timber
At the 12ha Mt Barrett property, 3ha of regenerating podocarp hums with “phenomenal” birdlife, a community walkway winds through the trees, harvests and replanting are intensively managed using local labour, and high-value mixed timber is milled on-site for specific building jobs. It will never “stack up” financially against a commercial radiata plantation.
But move to a triple bottom line system and the scales begin to tip, David says. “It’s an ongoing balancing act between economic pragmatism and environmental stewardship.”
The couple bought Mt Barrett from Jim Hughes a decade ago, wanting to continue his work planting mixed species with a focus on high-value timber, rather than the hulk log market.
They also saw great value in the block’s mature pines radiata, douglas fir, larch, eucalyptus regens, macrocarpa, lawson cypt us, lusitanica, chestnut and redwood trees for David’s building projects.
He is the talent behind high-profile builds such as Michael Seresin’s Waterfall Bay home, and says a lot of architects arc sped Eying plantation-grown hardwood timber, particularly eucalypt saligna. “I can grow a tree like that and it will take twice as long as radiata to grow, but it will be worth five, six times the price, and it requires no chemicals.”
Growing a tree for its potential as a table or door in 40 years’ time makes it easy to tend “with love”, says David.
“When I plant a tree, although it probably won’t be my generation that gets to use it, I’m always thinking, ‘Now lawson cypress will be really neat for the cladding but I also need some structure, so I’ll plant sonic radiata pine. I’ll need something for furniture, so I’ll plant some macrocarpa, and I might want some timber flooring so I’ll plant some eucalypt’.” The merging of his building and forestry interests is perfectly represented at the Kepes’ Mahakipawa Arm bach, a beautiful creation of macrocarpa, elm, douglas fir, lawson cypress and radiata pine, much of it felled and milled at Mt Barrett.
The couple don’t differentiate between production and amenity trees on their block, and part of the triple bottom line is in sharing the land, with the Rai Valley community creating a walkway to the summit of the mountain so the trees can be enjoyed during their 30-1to 40-year growth cycle.
Environment Awards judges commended a “strong stewardship ethic” towards the block. “It was a privilege to meet someone so passionate about the forest industry and its place in the region,” they said.
David says New Zealand’s perception oil forestry is either the clear-felling of native forest, “which was a real devastation on the landscape”, or massive radiata pine plantations.
Because radiata margins are so low, there’s very little money left for good “custodial regard” for the landscape, he says. Beyond the management strategy, he takes issue with the monoculture. Radiata is a “fantastic” timber, but the forestry industry’s reliance on it is like Marlborough growing just sauvignon Blanc, he says.
“Why would you grow one species when to have a wine that complements a four-course meal you’re going to need four wines? When you’re building a house, you don’t want all radiata pine, and certainly as an ecosystem, you don’t want all radiata pine.”
For further comments, please go to:
SEEING FORESTS FOR MORE THAN THE TREES
PART B: THE PICTURE-PERFECT PINE PLANTATION
SEEING FORESTS FOR MORE THAN THE TREES
PART C: ECOLOGICAL FORESTRY
Article written by Sophie Preece
Published in Wild tomato Magazine
