New Zealand School of Forestry

19/10/2026

The School of Forestry hosted the second Māori in Forestry Networking Evening on 7 October 2026, which brings together our Māori students to connect and strengthen relationships within the School. The evening began with a mihi whakatau and a warm welcome from UC Kaiārahi Bree Bell and Head of School Professor Rien Visser. Our main guest speaker, Te Kapunga, CEO of Interpine, shared his experiences in the forestry industry and offered valuable career advice and encouragement to students. Representatives from TOTEM also attended, contributing to an engaging evening of kōrero and whakawhanaungatanga. The event was a great opportunity to celebrate Māori participation in forestry and strengthen connections between students, staff and industry.

15/10/2026

Taking remote sensing to the skies!
Our FORE448 Advanced Remote Sensing in Forestry and Natural Resource Management students headed to Ilam Fields this week for a hands-on UAV demonstration! Students explored different drone platforms and sensors, learned about flight planning and safe operations, and had the opportunity to practise flying drones. A great way to bring classroom learning into practice! Thanks to Jeff Pickering and our team for making the demonstration possible.

29/09/2026

Field trips are a strong feature to our teaching at the School of Forestry. First year 'Trees in the landscape' students were treated to a behind the scenes tour of the Christchurch Botanic Gardens. Director Wolfgang Bopp gave students an introduction to botanic gardens, their facilities, and the role that botanic gardens play in plant conservation. It was also an opportunity to see rare plants and develop an understanding of the importance of trees in urban settings.

28/09/2026

The forestry student society (FORSOC) held their annual tree planting weekend for the Cass Forest Restoration Project on 21-23 August at the Cass Field station. Our thanks to FORSOC committee members Te’a Kemp, Briana Hodge and Jack Robertson for their contribution to organising the event and Jenny Ladley for her support on planting day. 21 Forestry Science and Forest Engineering students planted 462 mountain beech seedlings on Remus Hill and enjoyed spending time together over the weekend in this outstanding alpine environment.

Our first planting weekend was in 2022 and to date we have planted approximately 2,430 trees. The original mountain beech forest cover on Remus Hill was burnt around the 14th century, and in most areas has not returned. Natural regeneration of shrub species is slowly recolonising the site, and our objective is to accelerate the forest restoration process. We make use of these shrub species to provide shelter for the seedlings. We measure the seedlings and record their location at the time of planting and undertake ongoing monitoring of seedling survival and growth on field trips for our Forestry Science courses. Our method has led to good survival rates (50% to 70%) and good seedling growth. Ongoing challenges are herbivory by deer and hares, and impacts from pig rooting.

24/09/2026

Our new 1st year Wood-based Bioeconomy course has started very well, with Thomas Lim and Rien Visser showing new opportunities that can make a career in forestry exciting. Special thanks to our successful alums for meeting up with our students and showing them their work - Angus McKenzie in his Timbers of NZ showroom (see photo), Land Purchasing with Acacia Farmery (Arotahi) and ETS with Adrian Loo (FMG).

22/09/2026

The SOF continues to engage with Industry for professional development opportunities. After teaching four different 1-day themes in Rotorua in July, last week Rien held another ‘Logging Productivity’ workshop in Nelson in conjunction with F**A. A number of SOF graduates took the opportunity to share their expertise including Patrick Humphrey, Sam Nuske and Hamish Berkett – made for a very interesting day. In case you are interested, another workshop is coming up October 16th in Balclutha (see Logging Productivity Balclutha on the Eventbrite website).

06/08/2026

Practical learning experiences are a strong feature of our programmes at the School of Forestry. This week FORE323 (Wood Processing) had the opportunity to visit SRS Sawmill in Rolleston. It was an opportunity to see logs sawn, dried, sorted and processed into a wide variety of end uses. Huge thanks to Paul Vane and the team at SRS who are big supporters of the school's educational and research programmes.

04/08/2026

Last night a keen group of future graduates heard about career options from an equally keen group of potential future employers. Big shout out to the NZIF for co-hosting and providing the food. It was awesome for our students to hear from past graduates who are now out there living the dream. Big thank you to all of the industry partners who came along to share, network, and engage with our students. Cheers to Tasman Pine Forests, Port Blakely, Trimble Forestry, Matariki Forests, Margules Groome, Rata Forest Management, M&R Forestland, Kaingaroa Tipu, Zolve Environmental, Stand Forestry, MPI | TUR, and Ernslaw One.

27/07/2026

Forests are important for many reasons and our urban forests tend to include those trees that many people interact with the most. Listen to one of our most recent doctoral graduates, Dave Pedley, talking with Katherine Ryan on nine to noon about how we can maintain canopy cover in our urban areas.

Between 2016 and 2021, Christchurch lost 14.5 per cent of its urban tree canopy and most of the lost trees were on residential land.

16/06/2026

The second week of exams is drawing to a close and we have our second year Geospatial course study notes on the whiteboard this week. Diagrams and charts helping this time around. With our 4th Year Advanced Geospatial course running in 2nd Semester, it will be interesting to see the whiteboard in late October - if they can get into the meeting room!