Woodchipping

Woodchipping

Woodchipping is the act and industry of chipping wood for pulp, processed wood products, and mulch.-Papermaking:Timber is converted to woodchips and sold, primarily, for pulp production used in paper manufacture...

in New Zealand is one of the sectors of the forestry industry and it attracted controversy in the 1990s when native trees were used as a source for the chipping.

Wood chip exports

The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry

Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (New Zealand)

The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry is the state sector organisation of New Zealand which deals with matters relating to agriculture, forestry and biosecurity...

 collates figures on quantities of wood chip exports.

Wood chip exports

Year	Hardwood		Softwood
	Quantity (BDU)	Value ($)	Quantity (BDU)	Value ($)
1999	31,979	6,672
2000	46,069	10,198
2001	46,317	9,838
2002	6,721	1,278
2003	14,828	2,130	309,351	44,912
2004	18,636	1,869	206,345	29,868
2005	21,076	4,125	239,729	33,772
2006	47,438	9,606	186,436	29,832
2007	59,220	8,888	307,121	51,493
2008	67,525	17,670	307,881	65,844
2009	39,009	9,668	171,357	35,971

One BDU (bone dry unit) of hardwood chips in roundwood equivalent is 2.25 cubic metres and weighs 1090 kilograms.

Controversy

Since the settlement of New Zealand by Māori and then by Europeans has seen a loss of 75% of the indigenous forest cover. With European settlement in the 19th century large areas were cleared for pastoral farming and for logging. The export wood chip industry was as the main cause of forest clearance on private land after 1970 and by the 1980s 95% of forest loss was due to wood chipping. The native forest were replanted with plantations of fast growing species such as Pinus radiata.

After protests from environmentalists the exporting of wood chips from indigenous forests was stopped by the government in 1996.

External links

• Quarterly Wood Chip Statistics at the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry