Making New Zealand - Forestry
- Educational
- Documentary
- NZ History
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 history of exotic forestry in New Zealand, Te Ara website
The history of native forestry in New Zealand, Te Ara
Section on forestry research in NZ, Te Ara
Article on Pre-European damage to forestsn, Te Ara
Article on the future of NZ's forests after Cyclone Gabrielle, Radio New Zealand, February 2023
Article about the special nature of the kauri tree, NZ Geographic, July 2006
Key Cast & Crew












