The Proposal

Specifically, over the next 10 years, this national initiative proposes to strategically reforest and restore an initial 2.1 million hectares of indigenous forest, comprising:

• the enhancement of existing but degraded private (approx. 739,000 ha) and public forest (approx. 547,000 ha); and
• the reforestation of approximately.:
  609,000ha of protected, non-forested land;

52,000 ha of low productivity land;
30,000 ha of marginal high-country land;
50,000 ha of riparian planting; and
77,000 of other non-protected, Crown land.

These figures are conservative and are informed by analysis that identifies a total of 5.55 million hectares of land in Aotearoa New Zealand with ecological potential to support large-scale indigenous reforestation or restoration (i.e. excluding urban and smaller, community-scale opportunities). This initiative will aspire to achieve all of that potential.

In practice, target areas across a range of private, public, protected, and iwi land will be identified in close collaboration with interested stakeholders, and a programme of action, and associated funding and investment model(s), developed to optimise and realise the many co-benefits that indigenous forests deliver.

But we need to start on this initiative now.