17 December 2009

Provisional Release of New Zealand’s National Exotic Forest Description for 2009

The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry today made public the provisional data from its A National Exotic Forest Description (NEFD) report on its website.

The NEFD 2009 provisional release provides a detailed description of New Zealand’s planted forests and forest activities such as harvesting statistics. The full report will be published in April 2010 once data is finalised, and will contain the 2009 deforestation and new planting estimates.

The NEFD is published annually to assist infrastructure and policy planning, and is complied from a survey of forest owners and forest managers. This is the first year that provisional results have been published prior to the full report, in response to requests from industry for data as soon as it becomes available.

MAF produces this information in cooperation with the New Zealand Forest Owners Association and the New Zealand Farm Forestry Association and it is now in its 26th edition.

The NEFD 2009 provisional release can be found on the MAF website www.maf.govt.nz/publications listed as the National Exotic Forest Description.

Key facts from the provisional release show that at April 1, 2009:

• The total standing volume increased from 446 million cubic metres in 2008 to 457 million cubic metres in 2009.
• The total harvested area was up 400 hectares from 2008 to an estimated 41 800 hectares in 2009.
• Area-weighted average clear fell age for radiata pine increased from 27.9 in 2008 to 28.3 in 2009.

ENDS

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