Official Opening Forest Research Institute & School of Forestry

University of Canterbury Christchurch
Vice Chancellor Albert Brownlie; Professor Roger Sands; Mr Devon McLean; Staff and students of the School of Forestry and the Forest Research Institute; Ladies and Gentlemen. The last time Vice Chancellor Brownlie and I were at the university together, to view its impressive development, was for a tour of the School of Engineering. Professor Brownlie and I were supposed to have lunch with university council members following the tour. Events got in the way.

The police told me to get off the campus. Professor Brownlie, you still owe me lunch. As Education Minister, I always argued that aside from getting the economic fundamentals right, education was the most important investment we could make in the future of our country. As Forestry Minister, I'm now in a position to get down to specifics on the issue. Since our first plantation of exotic trees was planted a little over a hundred years ago, our competitive advantage has come from fast-growing, straight trees.

We've done well at it. Our exports of forestry products have increased to around two and a half billion dollars a year. That's third only to dairy and meat. Over 25,000 New Zealanders are employed directly by the industry. Clearly, forestry is critically important to the prosperity of this country. But it now has the opportunity to become even more important. Demand for wood can be expected to increase by two-thirds by 2025. Demand for industrial wood alone is increasing by 50 million cubic metres every year.

And there's increasing pressure for a move away from the unsustainable harvesting of natural forests, with plantation forests having to fill the gap. We're well placed to take advantage of all this. We plan to end the unsustainable harvesting of natural forests.

And here in New Zealand, our radiata harvest is expected to increase by over 70% over the next decade. The vast majority of this extra wood will have to be exported. We have a very clear choice. We could chop down that radiata, try to find a buyer, and stick our trees on ships for export as logs, woodchips, rough sawn timber, raw panels or pulp. Or alternatively, we could establish clearly what that growing market wants, process our trees into interior design products, building products, furniture, doors, fine paper or a whole range of higher value products, some yet to be invented.

It has been suggested that with new investment in processing between $4.5 billion and $6.5 billion, the increase in the harvest potentially offers us the chance to create up to 30,000 new jobs and up to $5 billion in extra export receipts per annum. In my view, that second approach will better enable us to compete with alternative products like plastic, steel or - in the case of paper - e-mail and the Internet. We can't work out what we have in New Zealand and then try to work out what the world wants.

We need to establish what the world wants and work back from there. Just having the fastest-growing, straightest trees is no longer enough, particularly as advances in technology mean that trees previously thought unsuitable for processing can now be turned into commercial, competing products. What's more, the trees we will be working with in the future will have different qualities from those we have worked with in the past. That's why I say education and research are more important than ever. We require research into the values of our international customers.

We require research into how we can process our trees into higher-value products which match those values. And we need ever-rising technical skills throughout the value chain of our forestry industry. That requires our marketing people, our production people, our research institutes, our education institutions and the Government to work together. The Government has put its money where its mouth is.

Last financial year, over $22 million was allocated from the Public Good Science Fund to the forestry industry, putting the industry fifth in terms of allocation of funds. In addition, the New Zealand Forestry Research Institute received a further two and a half million dollars directly from the Government. The industry has also put its money where its mouth is, putting in nearly $16 million to the institute.

And I commend the University of Canterbury for also showing its total commitment to the industry by using your reserves and your revenue for this tremendous redevelopment and extension of the School of Forestry. That the school and the institute will now be housed in the same building is a demonstration of the closer cooperation the industry needs for the future. The students too deserve commendation.

Back in the early '80s, there were but a handful of students taking forestry here at Canterbury. Now, there are around 250 demonstrating their real interest in the industry. I believe this redeveloped school, combined with the institute, will help fuel the ongoing development of the industry. I wish all who study and work here all the best and am delighted to declare the new facility officially open.