The paper will explore the impacts of commercial forestry on a rural region of New Zealand’s North Island. It will explain the rationale and relatively recent national policy justification for forestry development in the region. It will focus on the need for economic development (at least at the outset), erosion and sustainable resource management as key drivers of this process. The paper will explain how the ‘wall of wood’ expected from the region has heightened public awareness of forestry particularly through deficiencies in infrastructure and the ability of the forestry industry to deliver wealth creation for local people. It will also look closely at structural changes and trends in the local economy, particularly within agriculture, and the effects they have had on employment in the region and its economic vitality.

It will track the evolution of forestry development primarily through the eyes of the local community. It will explore perceptions and attitudes to forestry from a largely pastoral rural community and will endeavour to look at some of the strongly held beliefs about forestry and its impacts.

The paper will also focus on Maori perspectives of forestry development. Maori make up over 40% of the population of the region. Maori iwi (or tribes) have strong links and ties to the land. Given that forestry is not a transient land use, it is seen as having an important role to play in the future social and economic wellbeing of East Coast Maori. The paper will introduce and discuss Maori cultural and spiritual values and the issues that forestry raises in this context and with regard to Montreal Process criteria. It will also seek to establish whether or not there is a unique Maori view of forestry and how that view may shape future forestry management and activity in New Zealand. As a subtext the paper will look at issues of governance, Waitangi Treaty settlement and wider regional development in New Zealand.