In an attempt to miminise slash from local forestry operations and as a way to give back to the community our Summit teams live and work in, we spearheaded an initiative to offer free firewood to Gisborne locals this winter.
Our Gisborne team worked alongside our logging contactors to get the processor at one of our East Coast forests to cut the remainder of the radiata pine logs into 30cm rings that can then be further chopped up into firewood. Many tonnes were cut up and left for locals to pick up to stock up their wood piles for winter.
Another initiative saw approximately 16 tonnes of wood carted by Parata Limited to Kahuitara for a chainsaw course run by Eastern Institute of Technology. This gave the forestry students raw material to work on, learning about how to operate a chainsaw safely and maintenance. Afterwards, the wood will be split and dried and given to kaumatua around the area.
Dave Morice, Foundation Trades Skills tutor, said the donation of wood meant the world to their 10 young students.
“It was the difference between the course going ahead or not, to be honest. These are all young teenagers just out of school wanting to learn about the forestry industry as that’s the direction they’d like to go in. This chainsaw handling course is an important entry level step for them in pursuing a career in forestry and having the quality asset of pine to practice on was huge, just huge. Without it, the people of our community would have missed out on the essentials,” Dave says.
Summit also organised for a trailer-load of pine to be sent to Makarika School as a prize for their raffle, fundraising for their school trip to the snow.
Every year we have locals asking to go into the forest to collect firewood, which is tricky with the stringent health and safety regulations we adhere to. Bringing the wood out from the forests, for locals and students to access, was a way we could help our community and supply free firewood for those in need, as well as minimising slash in our forests.
Supplying free wood and firewood to our community was met with overwhelming positivity so it’s something we absolutely plan on doing again in the near future.