October 03, 2018
Scion hooks up with Māori foresters
The crown’s forestry research institute Scion says it is well place to support Māori aspirations for their land and their people.
In its annual report for the 12 months to June recently appointed chair Helen Anderson says during the year three partnerships involving Māori were supported by the new Provincial Growth Fund.
She says forestry, and all that can be made from trees, has great potential to enhance New Zealand’s prosperity, wellbeing and environment.
The Rotorua-based institute is highly aligned with government objectives such as increasing afforestation and enabling a zero carbon emissions economy by 2050.
A milestone achievement was completion of the world-first draft assembly of the radiata pine genome.
Scion also found optimising radiata pine stand density could increase the net value of the plantation estate by $1.7 billion.
It developed a model to predict the optimum final crop stand density for producing structural grade timber and in biosecurity it worked on the myrtle rust and kauri dieback responses.
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