State of Native Forests Revealed for First Time
New maps, derived directly from satellite images, reveal that nearly a quarter of NZ's land area is taken up by indigenous forest. Landcare Research's EcoSat forest maps show native forests cover nearly 66,000 km2, 24.8 percent of the country. Beech forests are the most widespread, followed by podocarp-broadleaved forests, which include conifers such as rimu, totara and matai, and broadleaved trees like rata, tawa and rewarewa. Exotic forest makes up 7.7 percent of our land area.
NZers can take heart in the amount of native forest. It's not as good as Germany's 30 percent or Brazil's 60 percent, but it compares well with the Netherlands' 10 percent and the UK's 8 percent.
The maps are available to a scale of 1:50,000, far more detailed than their nearest equivalent - maps at 1:1,000,000 produced 15 years ago. Summary maps at a 1:750,000 scale can be obtained from Landcare Research. The satellite imagery for the maps was collected between 1999 and 2003. The maps will be updated in 2010.
EcoSat maps can be viewed in greater detail at: http://info.massey.landcareresearch.co.nz/client/john/ |
Contact for Enquiries
The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry
Pastoral House
25 The Terrace
PO Box 2526, Wellington
Tel: +64 4 894 0100
Fax: +64 4 894 0720
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