Estimated roundwood removals from New Zealand forests: where does all the wood go?
by
Judith Dennis
Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry

The indirect estimate of roundwood removals from New Zealand’s forests is based on several data sources. These include the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry’s (MAF’s) wood processing surveys and export data produced by Statistics New Zealand.

Roundwood removals are an important measure of forestry activity in New Zealand. These estimates are used by Statistics New Zealand as input to calculations of quarterly movements in Gross Domestic Product, the New Zealand Treasury for monitoring economic performance for the forestry and wood processing sector, and by MAF as an input for macroeconomic forecasts.

Logs intended for export (and processing off-shore) comprise almost one-third of total harvest, the remainder being processed in New Zealand. For the year ended March 2000, saw logs made up more than half of this remainder. Accurate estimates of conversion factors from log input to forestry products outputs are required. The paper outlines how these conversion factors are estimated.

A comparison is made between the indirect estimates of roundwood removals obtained in recent years with the more directly obtained harvest data captured by MAF’s National Exotic Forest Description Surveys, (New Zealand’s national forest inventory system). While nationally the two sets of data are quite comparable, there are discrepancies at a regional level. The reasons for the differences are discussed.

In conclusion, further work required in this important and interesting practical forestry measurement is identified.

Date received: August 30, 2001