Woodchipping Woodchips are small- to medium-sized pieces of wood formed by cutting or chipping larger pieces of wood such as trees, branches, logging residues, stumps, roots, and wood waste. Woodchips may be used as a biomass solid fuel and are raw material ...

in New Zealand is one of the sectors of the forestry industry and it attracted controversy in the 1990s when native trees were used as a source for the chipping.

Wood chip exports

The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry collates figures on quantities of wood chip exports. :One BDU (bone dry unit) of hardwood chips in roundwood equivalent is 2.25 cubic metres and weighs 1090 kilograms.

Controversy

Since the settlement of New Zealand by Māori and then by Europeans has seen a loss of 75% of the indigenous forest cover. With European settlement in the 19th century, large areas were cleared for pastoral farming and for logging. The export wood chip industry was the main cause of forest clearance on private land after 1970. By the 1980s, 95% of forest loss was due to wood chipping. The native forests were replanted with faster growing species such as the ''

Pinus radiata ''Pinus radiata'' ( syn. ''Pinus insignis''), the Monterey pine, insignis pine or radiata pine, is a species of pine native to the Central Coast of California and Mexico ( Guadalupe Island and Cedros island). It is an evergreen conifer in the ...

''. After protests from environmentalists the exporting of wood chips from indigenous forests was stopped by the government in 1996.

References

External links

Quarterly Wood Chip Statistics
at the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry
The Forestry Mulching Pros
Environmental issues in New Zealand Forestry in New Zealand Environmental issues with forests {{NewZealand-stub

Wood chip exports

Controversy

See also

References

External links