Patrick Dravitzki has always been drawn to the forest: mountain biking, running and even building bike tracks with his friends. It was a great place for recreation. Then he found out it was also a great place to work.

Now a harvest forester based in New England Forestry Matariki Forests’ Whangarei location in New Zealand, Patrick says he found forestry after studying commerce. After one semester, he realized commerce wasn’t the right fit.

“I realised that it must be someone’s job to manage forests, so that’s what sparked my interest and I dug further,” he says. 

He soon found out it was not just a job, but a field where there was excellent potential to find good work directly out of university.

“I liked that there were really good employment opportunities for forestry graduates and it seemed like it was a good blend of subjects that I enjoyed at school.”

Going to Forestry School

Patrick was already a student at the University of Canterbury.

“I was hoping to continue my study there. Good fortune it is the only forestry school in Australasia!”

He got to work pursuing his Bachelor of Forestry Science and he quickly knew he was in the right place.

“Forestry is a great path to take if you love working in the outdoors, meeting interesting people and serving a wide range of roles,” Patrick says. “Studying forestry science at university is great. You are in a relatively small class with 20 to 30 like-minded people. We had a forestry society who were regularly hosting BBQs, bus trips and balls, these were all very social and a great way to get to know your classmates.”

A Summer Student Program Leads to a Permanent Position

Patrick was still attending university when he first worked with New England Forestry.

“I initially worked for New England Forestry during the summer of 2016/2017 as part of their summer student program,” he recalls. “I worked in the Northland regional office based just outside Whangarei. This role was advertised through the university and it was open to all 2nd and 3rd year students. As part of our degree we had to complete a certain amount of infield work experience.”

Patrick didn’t know where it would lead: “At the time I had no preconceived ideas of what New England Forestry would be like, but I am very happy with my decision and where that has taken me.”

By the time the summer was over, Patrick knew New England Forestry would be a great employer.

“While working as a summer student I gained an insight into what New England Forestry was like as an employer and what the role would involve. When in 2018 I was offered a permanent position as a graduate forester, I jumped at the opportunity.”

Enjoying Each Step in the Forest Lifecycle as a Harvest Forester

Patrick says no two days are ever alike at work.

“The best thing about my current role is, as a harvest forester, I am involved at each step of the rotation,” he says. “From the planting and establishment activities through to the silvicultural treatments and finally to the harvesting. This gives me a great insight into all aspects without having blinkers on for one stage of the rotation. It has also meant that I’m always doing something different and it is certainly never boring!”

As he continues to grow in his career, he says he’s also continuing to learn from those he works with.

“Being involved in different types of operations has meant I’ve had the opportunity to work alongside contractors who have been good enough to impart some of their knowledge and wisdom onto me.”

Advice for future New Zealand Foresters

If you’re a student looking for a career that will allow you to spend a lot of time outdoors, actively take a role in protecting the environment, and be able to find solid work after graduating, consider forestry!

“The work itself is also very interesting,” Patrick says. “You are working in a wide variety of environments with some serious characters. I would strongly recommend forestry as a career path to anybody considering it.”

The post No Two Days Alike for NZ Harvest Forester appeared first on New England Forestry Stories.

Some people are destined to spend their lives outdoors.

Seamus Bardoul knew he was one of those people when he left his small hometown of Matamata to study at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand.

He loved the location, with the beautiful Southern Alps mountains and places to ski, hunt and surf. As a bonus, UC’s rugby program would allow him to continue playing a sport he had enjoyed since he was a toddler. But most importantly, he knew it was the only place in New Zealand to pursue the career of his dreams: working as a forestry engineer.

“I had always been interested in engineering since a young age and had a strong passion for the outdoors,” says Seamus, now a New England Forestry Harvest Planner based in Tauranga. He was a young teenager when he first learned about forestry engineering during a careers event. He set his sights on forestry from that day forward.

Studying forestry full of adventure

For Seamus, there was rarely a dull moment at university. He split his time between his studies, rugby, and a job as a shearer. Forestry classes often were not the typical classroom-only experience. Instead, the students were on the go.

“There were often field trips around the South Island. We took one to the North Island in our fourth year of study,” he recalls. 

His forestry group was very tight-knit, sometimes pulling all-nighters together to get their work done. The forestry students spent their downtime together, too, regularly gathering for barbecues and social events.

Discovering New England Forestry

In his third year of study, Seamus received a scholarship and an internship with New England Forestry Matariki Forests. He quickly built friendships and became interested in working with the company after graduation. At the end of his final year at UC, New England Forestry offered Seamus a graduate role. He gladly accepted.

“The relationship that I built with the Tauranga office in my internship and the team here is what cemented my decision to work here,” he says.

Seamus has continued to learn and grow as a New England Forestry forester.

“I have a large independence in my role and work with an epic team,” he says. “The mix of experience in the office makes learning easy.”

Using what he learned

Seamus says techniques he learned at UC play a role in his work on most days as he plans the most effective way to move logs from the forest to public roadways.

He credits UC with equipping him with the skills he now uses to navigate mapping tools and GIS; design roads with civil engineering tools; and source forest rock using geotech knowledge. In addition, he says the people skills he learned at university have been invaluable on the job.

For students considering a forestry major, he recommends they “give it heaps” of consideration.

Forestry at UC

The University of Canterbury is New Zealand’s only university offering professional forestry degree programs. Undergraduate programmes include a Bachelor of Forestry Science and—as Seamus chose—a Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) in Forest Engineering. 

New England Forestry Matariki Forests has a longstanding relationship with the UC across our student programs.

• New England Forestry offers scholarships/student vacation opportunities to 2nd and 3rd students annually, including student vacation work of 10-14 weeks over the summer period and a scholarship of up to $5K. 
• We recruit for graduates each year. Our aim is to give our graduates broad exposure to the various aspects of operational forestry over their first 2 years of employment. We look for focused, driven all-rounders with a good attitude and who are passionate about forestry. 
• Other examples of our involvement include: our efforts to support dissertation projects work during a student’s vacation work, hosting field trips for UC students, attending Meet the Employer Evenings at the UC Career evenings and participating in industry meetings at the UC.

The post New Zealand Outdoorsman Finds His Calling in Forest Engineering appeared first on New England Forestry Stories.

One seemingly small decision can change where your life is headed.

Sarah de Gouw was one year into pursuing a science degree at New Zealand’s University of Canterbury when she decided to take a forestry course as an elective. By the end of the course, she knew forestry was the career for her.

“Forestry combined my passion for the outdoors with environmental management, sustainability and what I had learned in the beginning of my science degree,” says Sarah, now a New England Forestry harvest forester in Southland, New Zealand. “I knew absolutely nothing about the industry until I took that course.”

It was an exciting discovery for two reasons: first, because it was such an interesting field, with a wide range of subjects, the kind of hands-on work Sarah loves and even field trips across the South and North islands. Secondly, forestry expertise was (and is) in high-demand in the workforce, with many jobs available throughout New Zealand for forestry graduates.

A Wide Variety of Subjects

The more Sarah learned about forestry, the more she confirmed this was where she belonged. 

“The wide variety of subjects that we studied was surprising, everything from economics and engineering to biosecurity, silviculture and wood science,” she says. “The advancement of technology in the industry was also surprising.”

Sarah was able to see how drones, winch-assist machines and other tech was changing the landscape of forestry work, making it safer, more efficient and environmentally-friendly.

“Most classes also had a lab component, which created variety and a chance to complete some practical work or assignments that imitated scenarios in our potential future jobs,” Sarah says. 

Studying forestry was exciting and interesting, but also took a lot of hard work. Determined to get her Bachelor of Forestry Science with honors, she spent many early mornings and late nights in the computer lab and library.

“For me the most challenging part was the statistics courses, as math had never been my strongest point. But the lectures are amazing as well as your classmates, so it was easy to get extra help when needed,” she says.

A Closeknit Group

The school’s forestry classes were small, and the bonds between forestry students were strong. Sarah became involved in the Forestry Society, known as FORSOC, which united forestry students throughout the university. There were also special Women in Forestry events.

“Even several years after graduating, whenever we are in the same city as other classmates, we still catch up for a BBQ or drink,” Sarah says.

Discovering New England Forestry through an Internship

When summer break came around, Sarah made some new friends in her summer internships, joining the New England Forestry team each summer.

“Summer student jobs were advertised through the School of Forestry at uni,” she recalls. “New England Forestry employees and the contractors are all great people, and it creates a work environment that is enjoyable to be a part of.”

The internships gave her real-life experience in the type of work she wanted to do:

“During the summer, I worked as a part of the New England Forestry Canterbury office. I helped create harvests plans, QC logs, QC blocks that had been thinned and complete assessments of significant ecological areas.”

After graduation, Sarah knew where she wanted to go: she immediately began working for New England Forestry.

“The people and high standards were inspiring and something I wanted to contribute to. The ability for growth and development opportunities was also appealing,” she says.

Sarah uses principles she learned at university regularly in her career with New England Forestry.

“Basic harvest planning principles and creating maps using ArcMap are skills that I use every week in my current role,” she says. “Time management is also an important skill to ensure jobs and projects are completed on time.”

Some of her favorite aspects of her work are catching up with contractors in the forest, working on harvest plans and problem solving.

“It is rewarding to be working for a company in a sustainable industry that cares about our environmental impact,” she says. 

Advice for Future Forestry Students

For students considering a forestry degree, Sarah says it is a great first step into a promising career.

“The degree is specialised for the industry and the types of jobs you are mostly likely to apply for when you graduate, so you will be well-prepared when you complete your degree,” she says.

It’s also just plain enjoyable.

“University as a forestry major was so much fun. The class sizes were small so you got to know your classmates and lecturers well. And the wide variety of subjects meant that every semester was different.”

There’s also variety in job options within the field.

“The forest industry provides so many opportunities,” Sarah says. “You can be involved in any part of the ‘cycle’ all the way from the very beginning—when land prepping of a block for planting occurs—to the sale of the logs to customers around the world, and all the many jobs in between.”

The post One Forestry Class Changed Everything for this NZ Forester appeared first on New England Forestry Stories.

With logs rushing to meet the needs of today’s consumers, do you ever find yourself asking, “Are we going to run out of trees?”

Believe it or not, sustainable forestry companies like New England Forestry plant many times more trees than we harvest. In the typical year, New England Forestry foresters put more than 30 million trees in the ground. We reforest most areas we cut within two years of the harvest. The trees we plant will provide for the next generation.

It’s not just a simple process of dropping seeds and leaving them alone for decades. It takes years to plan each planting operation. We combine everything we know about genetics, agriculture and soils. We also consider the unique conditions of each region where we plant to help each forest thrive.

For this story, planting teams in three different parts of our ownership, the U.S. South, the U.S. Pacific Northwest and New Zealand, explain how we plant trees in each of those regions.

Planting forests over a lifetime

Imagine working as a farmer, but rarely being able to harvest the crops you plant. You nurture them every day, but it will be for another generation to actually gather the fruits of your labor.

That is the work of a forester. They plant trees knowing they will grow for decades before it’s time to cut them.

On rare occasions, a longtime forester may see the process from start to finish. Dan Hildebrand, a New England Forestry resource land manager who’s been with our company more than 30 years, has done it. He harvested the same trees he planted many years prior. Then he replanted that same field again.

How to plant trees in the U.S. Southeast

During a recent planting operation near Jesup, Georgia, Dan climbed aboard a refrigerated van. He checks it each day to ensure his loblolly pine seedlings inside are nice and cool. 

The van, powered by a diesel engine, maintains a 37 degrees Fahrenheit temperature to ensure the trees stay dormant. Warmth might signal that it’s time to grow. This would stress the trees unnecessarily in the already stressful transition from our nursery to the forest. 

Planting trees in the coldest months

The goal is to plant all the trees in the coldest winter months, November through February. That ensures the roots have time to become established in the ground before the seedlings begin to grow.

“We have about 475,000 trees per vanload,” Dan says. “We try to plant them all in about one week.”

While some parts of our ownership rely on outside nurseries to grow our seedlings for us, in the Southeast we use trees grown in our own seedling nursery in Elberta, Alabama. That region’s rich soils grow healthy rootstocks, giving the trees a great start.

The seeds for these trees come from New England Forestry seed orchards. We breed our best-performing trees in the orchards and harvest the seeds from their pine cones.

Site prep keeps trees dry in rainy months

Out in the forests Dan’s crews are replanting, all the “site prep” work has already been done to prepare the ground for planting. Since many of these properties are low-lying, we often row the soil into long, straight raised beds. That will ensure the trees are above the water table and don’t drown before they’re established. Thanks to GPS on the tractors, the rows are perfectly straight and exactly the right distance apart to ensure the right spacing for the trees.

Throughout the day, Dan checks on various planting crews, each of whom will plant thousands of trees per-day. They use a tractor to pull a “hopper” through the planting area, and a person sitting in the hopper drops the seedling in the ground at just the right moment. 

“In the front is a 36-inch, knife-like disk that looks like a pizza cutter,” Dan explains. “It cuts a narrow slot in the ground. You drop the tree in the slot, and then the wheels on the back of the hopper packs the slot back together.”

Dan says the planters use a “cadence,” planting every two or three seconds to ensure each tree is 5 feet apart. The spacing will ensure even growing conditions, similar to how one would plant a garden.

Ensuring the trees are planted right

Dan walks the field and performs what our foresters call “an audit.” He checks the trees to ensure they’re being planted deep enough, giving a gentle tug on their tops. He makes sure the roots are planted straight down and the stems haven’t been handled too roughly. 

Since all trees are primarily alive only in their outer cambium layer, Dan explains, “The live part of this 1-year-old tree is thinner than a piece of paper. It has to be planted deep in the soil to stay protected.”

Once they’re in the ground, these trees will be under a careful forest management plan for the next two decades. They will receive fertilizer treatments, competing weeds will be removed, and, in about 12 years, the weakest of the trees will be thinned out and used for pulp products like toilet paper, cardboard and paper.

Somewhere between 18 and 25 years from now, the remaining trees will be harvested for products such as lumber and fencing. It’s a long time, but as you’ll see, in other areas, our trees grow twice as long.

How to plant tress in the U.S. Pacific Northwest

Our planting operations in the Pacific Northwest are done with entirely different trees, methods and terrain. Near the small Washington town of South Bend, David Springe pulls on a jacket to fend off the chilly weather.

Out here, the cold Washington air is just right to keep our Douglas-fir seedlings dormant.

David, a resource land manager for our Hoquiam team, picks up a seedling and admires its root system.

“This has a good root to shoot ratio,” he says, explaining a tree should have a generous amount of roots for the amount of green “shoot” coming out of the ground.

While our trees in the Southeast were only about a year old at planting time, here they grow an extra year in the nursery, reaching their second birthday before they’re replanted to ensure they’re about two feet tall before they’re exposed to the infamously rainy weather of the Washington mountains.

Leaving stumps and branches on the ground

While we plow neat rows in the South, here in Washington we leave most stumps and tree debris (known as “slash” to the locals) on the ground after the previous forest is harvested. That will help hold the soils in place, preventing erosion on the steep slopes and keeping sediment out of waterways below. It conserves the organic matter and nutrients within the soils. And, as the slash breaks down, it will also serve as a natural, slow-release fertilizer for the trees we plant today.

Planting each tree by hand

With steep slopes and rough terrain, these forests aren’t planted using tractors or other heavy equipment. Out here, each tree is planted by hand and shovel.

While the work isn’t easy, experienced planters can put more than 1,000 trees per-person in the ground in a single day. Just like the tractor planters in the Southeast, these planters develop a rhythm that keeps them planting at a steady pace while they’re evenly spaced apart from one another.

“They dig a hole by stomping on their shovel and wrenching it back and forth, which loosens the soil. Then they place the seedling with the roots hanging straight down and use the shovel to push the soil back in,” David explains.

Each person on the planting crew wears two bags loaded with trees: the pair weighs about 40 lbs. when full.

Watching as a crew planted across a picturesque hillside, David said, “They’re choosing the best location to dig every hole. It’s one of the most important decisions made in each of these trees’ lifetimes.”

The typical forest in the Pacific Northwest will grow Douglas-firs about 40 years before they’re harvested.

How to plant trees in New Zealand

Our New Zealand team, New England Forestry | Matariki Forests, also plants primarily on steep terrain, so hand-planting is the most common method. Seedlings come from a number of independent nurseries who work closely with us.

“I enjoy working with the tree breeders, seed producers and nursery growers to deliver treestocks that are ‘fit for purpose’ for our field sites, silviculture and target wood products,” says Forest Estate Manager Paul Adams. “Nurseries are like ‘mini’ plantations, and each year they produce treestocks that are the start of the next age class of productive, high-quality forests across our estate.” 

Delivering Seedlings with Care

The team has a carefully-planned process to deliver seedlings to the forest in the best possible condition. 

“Many of our regions are able to plant tree stocks within 24 to 48 hours of lifting. There are generally daily deliveries of stock from the nursery to planting sites using a pod system to reduce compression of stock from boxes stored on boxes,” Paul explains. 

“These boxes are then carried in the field, commonly on a belt around the planter’s waist. The seedlings are taken directly from the box and planted in each planting hole.”

The work is undeniably challenging.

“Hand planting can be a difficult job due to the terrain, weather conditions and the physicality of the work,” says Forest Estate Manager Paul Adams. “It can take two to three years before a planter is proficient.”

Planters hard to find

While the scenery is beautiful and the work is consistent throughout the winter, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find enough planters to keep up with the demand. The New Zealand team is looking closely at advancing technology in the hopes that there will one day be efficient mechanical methods to assist with planting efforts. But, for now, there is nothing better than hand-planting.

With the coldest weather coming at the opposite time of year versus the United States, in New Zealand the prime time to plant is from mid-May to early August. The New Zealand team plants mostly radiata pine, some Douglas-fir and—on high altitude sites—some pine hybrids.

At times, the team is able to plant without having to prepare the ground beforehand, like our Pacific Northwest team. Other times, there is so much tree “residue” left behind that it would be too difficult to plant on. In those instances, the team uses mechanical site preparation. They collect the “residues” from the previous harvest into windrows, or “heaps.” If soils are compacted so much that they will limit tree growth, then ripping or mounding may be undertaken. In frost-prone areas, the team uses “spot mounding” to plant seedlings above ground level, where it will be warmer.

Taking pride in the trees we plant

Our foresters take pride in the trees they have planted. They’re contributing to the forests’ lifecycle, the health of the environment now and the needs of generations to come. Just ride along with one of them through the forest, and they’ll point out each stand they remember planting.

For Dan, there are many, many forests in the Southeast that he had a hand in planting.

“These trees will be used by my children and my grandchildren and their children,” he says.

To Learn More about our planting process:

Read our article, How Foresters Use Controlled Pollination to Improve Tree Performance, to learn more about our genetic breeding process.

Watch our video, Planting and Lifting Seedlings at New England Forestry’s Tree Nursery, to learn more about our pine tree nursery.

See a timeline and videos about all the steps of a tree’s life in the forest on our Lifecycle of a Forest web page.

The post New England Forestry Foresters Plant Millions of Trees Every Year appeared first on New England Forestry Stories.

New England Forestry’s New Zealand team has a deep respect for protecting wildlife including the beloved kiwi.

In the video above, our New Zealand management team joined with a number of community stakeholder groups at Te Kura o Te Teko (a full-immersion Māori school) to attend a kiwi naming ceremony before releasing two kiwi chicks into Omataroa Forest.

(The Māori are the indigenous Polynesian people of New Zealand. Kiwi are flightless birds native to the country and are a national symbol of New Zealand.)

The Omataroa Trust owns the land and has invested in environmental restoration including pest control and active kiwi management for decades to ensure a sustainable population of kiwi for generations to come.

Partnering to preserve a threatened national symbol

Rob Schoonderwoerd, District Forester for our Bay of Plenty region, has worked with the Trust since the inception of the Omataroa Kiwi Project. The presence of kiwi and native falcons was discovered through a survey of vegetation in 2000, prompting the development of a pest control plan. (The New Zealand falcon is the country’s only falcon species and is the most threatened bird of prey.)

There were about 30 Kiwi in the area when the project started in 2008, and by 2023 that figure had increased to about 120 birds. So far 80 eggs have been collected, and a resulting 60 chicks released back into the wild.

Kiwi are the size of a domestic chicken and are the smallest living ratites (the group of animals that includes ostriches and emus). They also lay the largest egg in relation to their body size of any species of bird in the world. Kiwi are nocturnal, so they are more often heard than seen. If they survive to maturity (5 years), they can live for 50 to 100 years; however, predation is the biggest issue facing their survival.

Pest control and protecting kiwi chicks

New England Forestry | Matariki Forests (RMF) is working with the Omataroa Kiwi Project to provide intensive trapping and pest control management, which largely targets stoats and cats. Buffer trapping is also being deployed beyond the 11,000-hectare (27,000-acre) reserve area.

The Kiwi Project team works with the Department of Conservation on the survivability of chicks using three techniques:

1. Incubation hatching at a special facility in Rainbow Springs in Rotorua, where the chicks are raised until they weigh 1,000 grams (2.2 pounds)
2. In situ management of nests and chicks
3. Crèching, where the chicks are sent to another region to be raised and are returned once they weigh 1,000 grams (2.2 pounds)

The two female chicks that were released at the event in the video above were hatched at Rainbow Springs and were named Hobson and Aroha (which means “love”) by the children at Te Teko school.

The kiwi were tagged with transmitters for monitoring and will be checked three weeks after being released into the wild. A key part of the Omataroa Kiwi Project is education, so we had the opportunity to teach the school children about the environment, predators and survival requirements of the kiwi.

A long-term commitment to stewardship

The kiwi management work being carried out by the Omataroa Kiwi Project along with pest control, education and training is crucial to the continued survival of kiwi in this forest. Thanks to Rob Schoonderwoerd’s work over the years, the Omataroa Trust has grown to be a valued partner, and the Trust has now invited New England Forestry | Matariki Forests to partner on a more substantial sponsorship program.

We recognize our responsibility as a forest owner to support the sustained preservation of the Eastern Brown Kiwi and other native birds in this forest for future generations, and we are delighted to be part of this wonderful conservation effort.

The post Saving the Kiwi appeared first on New England Forestry Stories.