New Zealand’s net stocked planted production forest covered an estimated 1.793 million hectares as at 1 April 2024.
The total planted forest standing volume was estimated to be 561 million cubic metres with an average age (area weighted) of 18.7 years.
The provisional new planting estimate for the year ending 31 December 2023 is 69,000 hectares. This number may be revised in future publications.
Table 1 on the following page provides key national forestry statistics as at 1 April 2024, as well as the statistics for 2022 and 2023 for comparison.
The distribution of the forest area by annual age class is shown in Figure 1. The decrease in area as age increases beyond 31 years indicates harvesting. Of particular note is the large area of forest between 25 to 31, years old, planted between 1999 and 1993, that has reached harvest age.
