15 Jul 2010

The Department of Conservation is calling for tenders for the management, harvest and sale of exotic forests on the public conservation lands it administers.

The contract term will be 5 years from 1 September 2010. The current five year contract which expires on 31 August is held by PF Olsen Limited.

In documents posted on the Government Electronic Tenders (GETs) website, DoC says it wishes to engage a contractor to assist it in the management of the sale and ongoing harvest of this resource on a co-ordinated, national basis. DOC does not normally replant any harvested area in exotic species and the harvest programmes will need to provide for the regeneration of natural cover.

The successful tenderer will be required within six months to produce a national exotic forest management plan including an annual national harvest schedule designed to achieve DOC’s conservation and revenue objectives. They will also be responsible for managing silviculture and weed control in the exotic tree resource, as directed by Department staff.

They will manage the advertising, letting and evaluation of harvesting tenders after approval by department staff, and manage the receipt to DoC of payments from harvest contracts into a national departmental fund, and the payment from that fund of costs associated with harvesting.

The management of the harvest contracts must take account of the need for harvesting to be done in such a way as to protect the conservation and environmental values of the sites involved, community concerns such as dust from logging trucks, public amenity issues and local iwi issues.    

DOC’s exotic forests total 417 hectares, ranging from high quality production forest, to large wilding tree stands, and small ‘specialist timber’ stands in remote locations. All except 5 hectares are in the North Island, with the biggest single stand -- 206 ha of eucalypts -- in the Tongariro/Taupo conservancy.

Source: GETS website