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Wood salvage a race against time

5 November 2023

Forestry crews are in a race against time to harvest 6500 hectares of trees blown over around Taupō and Tūrangi area in the central North Island during Cyclone Gabrielle. Since the February storm, 40 crews have been picking up about 3.5 million cubic metres of wood that was blown down.

New Zealand Forest Managers general manager John Hura said they were trying to salvage as much wood as possible, before it starts to deteriorate. “The salvage operation is a race against time.

“We’ve been fortunate to date that the log quality has held up pretty well, but we’re going into the hot dry period where we can expect some of the wood to deteriorate quickly,” Hura said.

It was hard to get into some areas initially, but access tracks had been created and crews were going full steam ahead, he said. “We’ve harvested 1.25 million cubic metres of logs. We want to at least do another million before Christmas, leaving a million to do in the first half of next year.

“We’re aiming to have the salvage all done by the end of June 2024.”

Source: RNZ

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