New Zealand does not collect statistics on fuelwood production or consumption. The sole available statistic is an FAO estimate of 50,000 cubic metres per annum divided evenly between coniferous and non-coniferous species. Intuitively, the FAO estimate seems too low. New Zealand households rely on four primary sources of heating; electricity, gas, and coal or wood fired burners. Many households employ some combination of these. In urban areas electricity and gas are the most popular forms of heating although coal and log fires are still frequently utilized. In rural areas wood fires and electricity without doubt predominate. Anecdotal observation suggests that at least 70 percent of rural households retain the capacity to utilize wood fires.
Given a rough assumption of 100,000 rural household in New Zealand with 70 percent of these burning one cubic metre of wood, fuelwood consumption is already 70,000 cubic metres. If one in ten urban households burned the same then this would add an additional 40,000 cubic metres, without yet considering industrial consumption.
Industrial uses of wood energy are limited generally to the wood-based industries. Forestry processing industries account for around 12 percent of New Zealand's total industrial energy consumption. Energy from the burning of wood (8.1 PJ) and pulp residues (14.9 PJ) contributes around 40 percent of total forestry energy use. A major use of off-cut wood and bark in sawmills is to fuel drying kilns. Bark is also used for electricity generation at various mills, particularly the larger pulp and fibreboard mills. Co-generation plants are also increasingly being explored. The New Zealand Ministry of Commerce estimates total forest industry processing energy consumption in 2010 will be 72 PJ of which wood will contribute 11.4 PJ and pulp residue 17.8. These estimates are not necessarily consistent with the other forecasts in this paper.
A very small quantity of fuelwood is imported annually. Most of this is probably designated for very special purposes such as firing tandoori ovens in Indian restaurants.
Non-wood forest products tend to be collected on a commercial basis in New Zealand. This is generally because the majority of natural forests are protected from all forms of unlicensed exploitation, while the planted forests are often not open to the public.
The major non-wood forest products extracted from the planted forests are turpentine which is processed at a plant in Mt Maunganui, and pine cones which are used as a fuel and particularly as a fire-starter.
In the natural forests sphagnum moss, for use in plant nurseries and absorbent purposes, is gathered. However, possibly the largest commercially extracted non-wood forest product is honey. A large variety of natural forest honeys are marketed in New Zealand. Many ferns, shrubs and small plants are extracted legally or illegally for garden and house decoration. Several forest-based plants and resins are collected non-commercially for medicinal or other purposes. Matai resin and "magic" mushrooms are both utilized by recreational drug users.
Both the planted and natural forests are host to feral pigs, deer, goats and possums, all of which are hunted for recreational and commercial purposes. A small amount of livestock grazing is available in planted forests.
Tourism is presently New Zealand's largest earner of foreign exchange. It is probably fair to say that although not strictly ecotourism, New Zealand's entire tourist industry is based around natural and wilderness attractions. Entry to national parks is free and all have well developed networks of trails providing easy access to natural forests. In terms of specific forest attractions, the giant kauri (Agathis australis) Tane Mahuta (Lord of the Forest) in Waipoua forest is without doubt the major draw card. The largest kauri were logged last century and these trees, although neither the world's tallest nor broadest, had the greatest timber volume.
The Department of Conservation currently allows over 600 tourism concessionaires to operate in New Zealand's protected areas. A recently adopted Concessions Policy covers all tourism businesses operating or applying to operate in New Zealand's national parks, reserves and conservation areas. The policy requires all tourism concession applicants to prepare an environmental impact assessment. Tourism concessions will only be granted if they are consistent with the protection of natural resources.
New Zealand has a large area of land devoted to arable and pastoral farming. However, New Zealand's geographical location, sprawled across the path of the "roaring 40's" means large tracts of protective shelterbelts have been developed in many areas. Many of these are commercial timber species, radiata pine, macrocarpa, Lawson cypress, although generally they have not been tended for timber values. Nonetheless there exists in shelterbelts a considerable exotic wood resource, probably several hundred thousand kilometres in length, additional to the planted forests. It is notable that during the 1992 wood price "boom" harvesting of shelterbelts became a regular feature. This may have raised awareness of the potential commercial value of shelterbelts and in due course industrial wood usage of shelterbelts may become more prevalent. Presently, shelterbelts often provide a convenient source of firewood or may even be merely felled and burned as rubbish - particularly when appropriate processing facilities are not readily available. However, if timber prices rise, shelterbelts may again become an economic source of feedstock for mills. Certainly be 2010 it will be realistic to expect a far greater proportion of maturing shelterbelts to have been tended to yield a better timber quality.
New Zealand's small and dispersed population means that presently, collection costs in most areas make paper recycling an uneconomic activity. Auckland, with a population exceeding one million is the only city where paper collection is economically viable (although it is collected in a number of other centres). The only paper mill processing recycled paper is at Penrose in Auckland. Plans have been mooted to build a second recycling plant in the Central North Island to supplement the pulp production of the two largest pulp and paper mills. Such a plant was to have used imported wastepaper as its primary feedstock. In addition to meeting a temporary fibre shortage the recycling plant would also have provided an ecological marketing edge for these mills' production. These plans may be resurrected during the next decade.
In terms of other fibre types, New Zealand produces a substantial quantity of grain, mainly wheat, oats and barley each year. Presently there are no processing facilities for straw residues and no plans to build such facilities. New Zealand has no fibre shortage pressuring it to utilize these residues. It is merely noted that there is a resource available which could, potentially, be tapped for production of paper or "strawboard".
