10 October 2019
An investigation by Radio New Zealand (RNZ) has found that the four largest private landowners in New Zealand are allforeign-owned forestry companies.The report says that this has occurred despite a clampdown on overseas investment. Sources: Timberbiz, Radio New Zealand
According to RNZ since the government was formed, the Overseas InvestmentOffice (OIO) has approved more than $2.3 billion of forestry relatedland sales.‘
About half has been sold via a streamlined ‘specialforestry test’ introduced by the government a year ago.
Overall, nearly NZ$5b of sensitive land has changed hands throughthe OIO since the government was formed.The information comes from an RNZ investigation into landownership in New Zealand.Using Land Information New Zealand data, Companies Officesearches and other research, RNZ has compiled a list of what webelieve are the 100 biggest private landowners in New Zealandby area, not including the Crown and public entities (whichcontrol at least 28% of the land) or iwi.
Together, these landowners have freehold ownership of 1.42mha of land, more than 10% of all privately-owned landand about 5% of New Zealand’s total land area of 26.8mha.That comes close to the 6.7% of total land RNZ couldconclusively identify as Māori-owned.
The analysis found at least 3.3% of New Zealand’s land isforeign-owned.RNZ has only counted freehold land, that is, land ownedoutright.
A separate analysis of lease titles found that many ofthe largest landowners were also large leaseholders. Thatincludes forestry companies, who often buy surface rights –known as ‘cutting rights’ – to plant and harvest trees, but notthe land itself.
Overseas forestry companies dominate the top of the freeholdlandowners list, taking the first four places, and account for sixof the top 10 land-holders overall.One of the companies, New Forests Asset Management,amassed its entire land portfolio of more than 77,000 ha in lessthan four years – bumping it from owning nothing in 2015, tobeing the country’s third biggest private landowner today.
The company was allowed to go ahead with an application tobuy more land – which was ultimately approved – while some ofits earlier purchases were still under investigation by theOverseas Investment Office.
English researcher and author Guy Shrubsole, who conducted ayears-long analysis of land ownership in the UK(https://whoownsengland.org/), said that was in stark contrastto the situation there, where only about 8.5% of land wasin some kind of public ownership.
The 10 largest freehold landowners in New Zealand are:
- Taumata Plantations Limited (101,854 hectares
- Tiong family (77,686 hectares
- New Forests Asset Management (77,465 hectares
- Matariki Forests (73,509 hectares
- Roberts and Apatu families (41,296 hectares combined
- Michael Spencer (35,942 hectares
- Port Blakely Limited (35,889 hectares)
- Global Forest Partners LLC (33,706 hectares)
- New Zealand Carbon Farming (28,365 hectares)
- Wairakei Pastoral Limited (27,634 hectares)
The figures in the list above have been compiled using LandInformation New Zealand data and may not account for someland transfers that have not been documented in LINZ’sdatabase.
The full story is at www.rnz.co.nz/news/in-depth/400417/green-rush-foreign-forestry-companies-nz-s-biggest-landowners
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