Area of Indigenous Forest in New Zealand by Regional Council Territorial Boundaries 1996-97. Based on Land Cover Database using satellite imagery acquired 1996 - 97.



Area of Indigenous Forest
by Regional Council Territorial Boundaries
New Zealand: 1996-97.
Based on Land Cover Database using satellite imagery.
Regions
Total
Indigenous Forest
All Tenures
Total Indigenous
Forest on DOC
Land
Total Indigenous
Forest on Private
Land
Tasman
531688
456,016
75,672
West Coast
1,361,351
1,194,511
166,840
Canterbury
263,637
186,263
77,374
Otago
204,321
158,838
45,483
Marlborough
196,150
167,253
28,897
Southland
1,131,656
1,008,412
123,244
SOUTH ISLAND
(incl Stewart Island)
3,688,803
3,171,293
517,510
Northland
271,958
105,187
166,771
Auckland
85,540
9,266
76,274
Waikato
513,765
297,011
216,754
Bay of Plenty
644,190
473,047
171,143
Gisborne
138,241
73,625
64,616
Hawke's Bay
299,200
201,567
97,631
Taranaki
225,265
128,041
97,224
Manawatu /
Wanganui
431,081
290,985
140,096
Wellington
158,085
98,412
59,673
NORTH ISLAND
2,767,325
1,677,141
1,090,182
NEW ZEALAND
TOTAL
6,456,128
4,848,434
1,607,692
Note 1: All areas provisional (whatever that means) and subject to ground checking which was due to be completed some time in May 2000.
Note 2: West Coast Region "Total Indigenous Forest on Private Land" includes forest under the control of Timberlands West Coast Limited, a State Owned Enterprise (SOE) the forest of which is STATE forest. Due to go mainly to DOC estate as at August 2000.
See other papers in these webpages for the unpleasant details.
Note 3: Indigenous forest is defined as "forest cover dominated by indigenous tall forest species." Which seems like a very inadequate definition to me, given that no height parameters are included and indigenous woody cover is revegetating in many parts of New Zealand.

On-line links in this series from MAF are as follows: If you select one of the region names you will get a list of the data available for that region which includes the land cover for that region.