Plantation forests take up about seven per cent of New Zealand’s land area, mostly in the North Island. Now, researchers have mapped these forests using a combination of airborne laser scanning and artificial intelligence.

There are 1.8 million hectares of commercial forestry in the country, and about 90 per cent of that is planted with radiata pine. Plantations are especially concentrated in the Bay of Plenty and on the East Coast, where recent storms have washed forestry debris onto beaches and pastures, leaving them littered with waste (see Issue 189).

The map can be updated using satellite images, making it possible to track the trees’ growth almost in real time and determine when they need to be harvested.

Before this, New Zealand didn’t have a clear national picture of its small-scale commercial forests—only its medium and large ones. Not pictured are the 1.8 million hectares covered in wilding pines, which are spreading rapidly and crowding out native forest.