Source: Radio New Zealand
Wisp Hill Station in southern Otago was Ingka Investment’s purchase in New Zealand, with the parent company of Swedish furniture giant IKEA, converting the farm to forestry. Gianina Schwanecke / Country Life
Converting farmland to forestry in the sensitive Catlins area of the South Island has been an opportunity to set good standards, says the forest management company tasked with the project, Southern Forests.
The river which flows through parts of Wisp Hill Station forms the headwaters of the Catlins’ estuary.
The 5500 hectare property – once a sheep and beef farm – also borders the Catlins Forest Park which straddles Otago and Southland.
Ingka Investments purchased the property in 2021 and set about converting about 3300ha into commercial forestry, retiring the remainder of the land and leaving native vegetation to regenerate.
“It’s quite sensitive land, it’s got high biodiversity values, high conservation value,” explained Josh Cairns of Southern Forests from the peak of the property.
“It’s quite unique here on this Wisp Hill range where we’ve got alpine species that are commonly found in the Southern Alps that are at much higher altitudes, but they seem to do quite well down here.
“It’s also too high altitude to grow a production forest on, so it just made sense to retire it and look after it.”
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Planting started on a 330ha block of the most unproductive part of the farm in the very back corner while the transition was underway, with Ingka contracting Southern Forests crews to work their way towards the middle of the property.
Four years on, the first trees are now between 4.5 and 6 metres tall and will be ready for pruning early next year.
About 2975ha have been planted in Pinus Radiata, another 140ha in Pinus Attenuata hybrids, 95ha has gone into redwoods, 100ha mānuka and 70ha is in mixed natives. Another 2130ha have been retired or planted in natives along the riparian margins.
Forest manager Josh Cairns, of Southern Forests, at Ingka’s Wisp Hill. Gianina Schwanecke / Country Life
With all eyes on Ingka, converting farmland to forestry was an opportunity for the firm to set the standard, Cairns said.
“We pride ourselves in doing a high quality job and doing it properly, and you know we had those discussions with Ingka in the very early stages and said ‘no shortcuts’. Everyone’s going to be looking at us, seeing what we’re doing here.
“We’re in an area where it does have quite a lot of biodiversity value and conservation value, a lot of waterways that need managed, so we want to be seen to be doing the right thing.
“And from day one, they were 100 percent on board with that. [They] provided a lot of leadership, a lot of education, advice coming from Europe, where some of the environmental regulations are a lot more stringent than ours here.”
Ingka and Southern Forests have prioritised riparian and waterway management, with a secondary focus on looking after the native species which grow in those corridors.
“In this particular catchment, there’s about 40 hectares of natives planted on the riparian margins, with pine tree setbacks ranging from probably 40 metres to 150 metres off of the waterway.
“In the future, it makes life a lot easier. We’ll never really have to stress about how we get those trees out when we harvest it, because we don’t have to worry about what’s happening in the waterway.”
Wisp Hill has high biodiversity value – on the peak grow alpine species that are commonly found in the Southern Alps at much higher altitudes. Gianina Schwanecke / Country Life
Another key focus – and part of the Overseas Investment Office requirements that allowed Ingka to purchase the property – has been ensuring public access.
Cairns said Ingka was keen to provide recreation opportunities for the local communities.
“We’ve got a really nice river here for fishing, good hunting opportunities.”
Access for hunters in particular helps with the local pest population, in particular the deer and pigs which live on bordering conservation land, which Cairns described as a “massive issue”.
“There’s one particular block we had to replant twice, 30 to 40ha, just through deer damage. It was just simply red deer coming out in that particular area and eating the trees.
“And at a cost of $2000-2500 a hectare to replant, well that buys you a lot of pest control.”
Since 2021, they have culled almost 8000 hares, rabbits and possums, over 1800 red deer and close to 570 pigs.
More than 3300ha of the 5500ha former-station have been planted in a mix of exotic forestry. Gianina Schwanecke / Country Life
As the forestry block is Forest Stewardship Council-certified they do not use poisons.
Two full-time pest control contractors help keep pressure on the population, while still allowing for recreational hunting opportunities which have helped to bring the local community on board.
Other major challenges Cairns faced were the heated debate surrounding the afforestation of farmland and concerns it would be shut up for carbon sequestration.
“The biggest challenge here was trying to, and it still is, getting the point across that this is a timber production forest first and foremost. And, we back that up by our pruning, planting and the genetics we’ve planted and that sort of thing.
“It was one of those properties that’s iconic down here and [there was] a lot of emotion attached to it.”
Cairns, who is also a farmer himself, understood the tension.
He said the property is different from other more productive, large-scale properties that have been converted recently, although it did not have high staffing levels – just a farm manager, stock manager, shepherd and tractor driver, with the owners based elsewhere.
The conversion to forestry has created new jobs for not only his team, but also forestry contractors, a local agricultural contractor and agricultural pilot.
Planting first started on the least productive section of the farm. Gianina Schwanecke / Country Life
Ingka ‘here for the long term’
Ingka’s forestland country manager Kelvin Meredith said New Zealand was identified as a key area for the company to develop a forestry portfolio early on, about the same time plans were developed for its first store in the country which opened in December last year.
“We all thought that IKEA was going to get here before forestry, but as it turned out, forestry was first sort of cab off the ranks.”
Meredith told Country Life timber was essential to IKEA – not only was it used in its supply chain, but it was also a great investment.
“It’s got nice, stable, steady returns, and you know, you can actually get some good environmental improvement by purchasing forests.”
IKEA’s first Auckland store opens on December 4 Marika Khabazi / RNZ
Inside IKEA’s first NZ store at Sylvia Park Marika Khabazi
At the time of the Wisp Hill purchase, Ingka’s first in New Zealand, a number of farms were being bought up by other companies for carbon sinks.
Meredith said it would have been easier for Ingka without the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), which drove up prices for such properties as demand for carbon credits increased.
About 8000ha of the 41,000ha Ingka owns in the country have been registered with the ETS to “preserve the value of the land”, including some forestry blocks which had been registered prior to purchase.
He hoped to see all the land that had been planted eventually registered.
“We have no intention of being carbon traders. We don’t want the cash for the business.
“Long term, we might look at selling some credits for biodiversity projects, but there’s been no decision made yet.”
Meredith told Country Life converting farmland to forestry had allowed Ingka to set the forests up in alignment with its values – larger set asides, big riparian margins, experimentation with different species, including natives for long-term restoration projects.
“It’s been quite beneficial to do that, although it has raised a few eyebrows because we have bought quite a bit of farmland, but not all of it is high-quality farmland. A fair chunk of that, we’ve subdivided off and sold to the neighbour. Wisp was a classic example – 300ha there sold to a neighbouring farm.”
Eventually he hoped to see some of the timber processed here in New Zealand, although he acknowledged there were a number of challenges facing the industry.
“We’re here for the long term.”
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand