Making New Zealand - Forestry

New Zealand's impressive native forests awed early Māori. Later European settlers set about building towns and exporting timber for profit. By the early twentieth century, forestry dominated New Zealand's economy. In this episode of Making New Zealand, experts discuss the post-colonial thirst for kauri wood and gum, and the government's then daring investment in mass planting pine trees, in the Bay of Plenty's Kāingaroa Forest. Former bushmen remember the heyday of local sawmills, before the government's "big sell off" of forestry assets and protection of native forests. 

The banks were completely clothed with the finest timber my eyes ever beheld.

– English naturalist Joseph Banks, in a 1769 account of travelling up a Coromandel river

Key Cast & Crew

Vincent Burke

Executive Producer

George Murahidy

Cinematographer

Laurie Clarke

Producer

Ken Sparks

Editor

Mark Clare

Narrator

Kathleen Mantel

Director