The NZ Forest Owners Association has launched its revamped and updated guidance for managing rare species in plantation forests website. FSC Australia and New Zealand encourage you to visit it here.
FSC Principle and Criteria recognises ecosystem services, environmental values and high conservation values for both native and plantation forests.
Many of New Zealand’s threatened species find favourable habitats in or adjacent to exotic plantation forests. Some may utilise plantation trees on a full-time basisincluding kiwi, falcon (karearea), Hochstetter’s frogs, and long-tailed bats. Other threatened species often utilise plantation forests to supplement food supplies (e.g. kaka, kea, kakariki, and kereru).
In either case, plantation forests provide key habitats for these species and, with careful management, contribute to their continued survival.
Within the plantation forest estate alone there could be as much as 200,000 hectares of indigenous forest remnants, riparian strips, watercourses and wetland. Many of New Zealand’s threatened species find favourable habitats in or adjacent to plantation forests.
The website was developed about 12 years ago with funding from Department of Conservation but had not been given an overhaul or been updated with the current threatened species for some time. The joint FOA and FFA Environment Committee, chaired by Peter Weir, committed to funding this revamp through the Forest Growers Levy Trust in 2016.