Social Licence to Operate (SLO) is an increasingly strategic concern in forestry, yet its evaluation remains largely qualitative. This study presents the first quantitative framework for assessing SLO in New Zealand's forestry sector, adapted from the Boutilier and Thomson model, originally developed for the mining sector. The framework integrates trust constructs with sector-specific indicators aligned to the triple-bottom-line-social, environmental and well-being dimensions. A survey across nine wood supply regions revealed significant regional variation, with institutional trust (2.60) and environmental approval (2.75) scoring lowest. The overall SLO score of 2.9 reflects an 'acceptance' level. Reliability was confirmed (Cronbach's alpha > 0.84). These findings highlight the need for improved transparency, community engagement and ecological stewardship. The framework enables systematic monitoring and strategic response to stakeholder expectations. By quantifying SLO and linking it to sustainability metrics, this research advances evidence-based governance and supports sustainable production in New Zealand's forestry sector.

Forestry management worldwide has become increasingly effective at obtaining high timber yields from productive forests. In New Zealand, a focus on improving an increasingly successful and largely Pinus radiata plantation forestry model over the last 150 years has resulted in some of the most productive timber forests in the temperate zone. In contrast to this success, the full range of forested landscapes across New Zealand, including native forests, are impacted by an array of pressures from introduced pests, diseases, and a changing climate, presenting a collective risk of losses in biological, social and economic value. As the national government policies incentivise reforestation and afforestation, the social acceptability of some forms of newly planted forests is also being challenged. Here, we review relevant literature in the area of integrated forest landscape management to optimise forests as nature-based solutions, presenting 'transitional forestry' as a model design and management paradigm appropriate to a range of forest types, where forest purpose is placed at the heart of decision making. We use New Zealand as a case study region, describing how this purpose-led transitional forestry model can benefit a cross section of forest types, from industrialised forest plantations to dedicated conservation forests and a range of multiple-purpose forests in between. Transitional forestry is an ongoing multi-decade process of change from current 'business-as-usual' forest management to future systems of forest management, embedded across a continuum of forest types. This holistic framework incorporates elements to enhance efficiencies of timber production, improve overall forest landscape resilience, and reduce some potential negative environmental impacts of commercial plantation forestry, while allowing the ecosystem functioning of commercial and non-commercial forests to be maximised, with increased public and biodiversity conservation value. Implementation of transitional forestry addresses tensions that arise between meeting climate mitigation targets and improving biodiversity criteria through afforestation, alongside increasing demand for forest biomass feedstocks to meet the demands of near-term bioenergy and bioeconomy goals. As ambitious government international targets are set for reforestation and afforestation using both native and exotic species, there is an increasing opportunity to make such transitions via integrated thinking that optimises forest values across a continuum of forest types, while embracing the diversity of ways in which such targets can be reached.

Context Biuret has potential to improve tree growth when applied at high rates as a slow-release nitrogen (N) fertiliser. However, there is little comparative research into the transformation of biuret and urea-N in forest soils. Aims This study comparatively investigated the mineralisation, nitrification and immobilisation of biuret and urea-N in two forest soils (a sandy loam soil and a silt loam soil) to further evaluate the suitability of biuret as a slow-release N source. Methods A 112-day long soil C and N mineralisation incubation study was conducted following application of 0, 4.08, 40.8 and 408 mg N kg−1 soil of biuret (referred to as control, B4, B41 and B408) and urea (referred to as control, U4, U41 and U408). CO2-C, microbial biomass C and N, NH4+-N and NO3−-N were measured at six times (on Days 2, 7, 14, 28, 56 and 112) to quantify net mineralisation and nitrification. Key results In both soils, biuret (especially in B408) was slowly mineralised with a steady increase in soil NH4+-N while urea was readily hydrolysed with a sharp increase and subsequently considerable decrease in soil NH4+-N. B408 had less nitrification than U408 in both soils, especially during the first 56 days. Conclusions Due to the lower mineralisation, nitrification and greater immobilisation, more biuret-N remained in the soils compared to urea-N. Biuret could be used as a potential slow-release N fertiliser in forest soils. Implications The research findings could have important implications for future biuret fertiliser development for plantation forests.

Credence or believability are paramount values in trade. The role of products' credence attributes has been well-analysed in the agricultural and food sector. This study examined the application of credence attributes to forest management and forest products marketing for the first time. We describe specific credence attributes of forest products and highlight their values, benefits, and importance in international trade. We used Delphi interviews of experts and surveyed forest and trade experts to assess the perceived merits of credence attributes in the forestry sector. We also compared certification schemes and sustainable forest management (SFM) indicators against credence values. We found that credence attributes play an important role in the forestry sector for both timber forest products and non-timber forest products (NTFP). While some credence attributes, such as the legality of forest products, already form the basis for trade and certification and are standard practice, other credence attributes are rising in awareness and could potentially create new markets. This study revealed the potential value of health aspects of forest products, particularly regarding NTFP and recreational services. Certification schemes and SFM provide credence at a collective level, and must encompass the rising importance of individual credence attributes of these newer important values. Last, we summarized the emerging environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investment practices to assess how credence factors may help affect such investments. Awareness of credence attributes can inform ESG criteria, certification schemes, and sustainable forest management frameworks about present or potentially future market expectations. Sustaining and enhancing natural capital and the flow of ecosystem services they provide, as well as social and human capital, will play an increasingly important role for forestry companies in the next decade. A better understanding of forestry credence attributes can inform the management of ESG of forestry industries and markets more effectively.

This study highlights the importance of incorporating objectively quantified, non-market environmental values (such as avoided erosion and carbon sequestration) into land use decision making for sustainable forest management. A continuously developing approach that has facilitated discussions between researchers, industries, and governments on the quantification of non-market values is the ecosystem services (ES) framework. Using a spatial economic tool, called Forest Investment Framework, this study is, to the best of our knowledge, the first assessment of the market (timber) and non-market (carbon sequestration, avoided nitrogen leaching and avoided erosion) ES values of the 1.75 million-hectare New Zealand planted forest estate. To collect the views of key planted forest industry representatives on ES assessment/quantification, we interviewed 14 forest managers representing 60% of the planted forest area. Results from the spatial economic analysis indicated that the non-market ES values can be more than four times the timber profit nationally, and up to 12 times higher in New Zealand's most erosion-prone region. These estimated values are indicative and should be treated with caution. From a sensitivity analysis, we found that different discount rates significantly impact ES values, ratios, and distributions. Results from the interviews indicated that ES quantification helped inform decision making by supporting license to operate, while also signaling the development of a reward system for sustaining ES. Sixty-four percent of survey respondents identified the importance of quantifying ES in ecological terms and describing other non-market ES in spatial, qualitative, or binary forms. Overall, this study provided evidence of how estimated non-market ES values compare with market values and highlighted the importance of including them in decision making processes. Future cost benefit analyses that incorporate these non-market monetary ES values would complement multi-criteria analysis that integrate additional dimensions and allow decision makers to rank options based on their particular criteria.

In 2018, New Zealand announced an ambitious effort to plant one billion trees by 2028 as part of its climate change mitigation plan and Paris Agreement targets for 2030 and 2050. Afforestation will be promoted through a series of incentives, including payments for carbon sequestration linked to New Zealand's Emission Trading Scheme. Given that afforestation will be pursued voluntarily, the identification of future afforestation areas is paramount to assist policy formulation and avoid unintended land-use outcomes. We identified spatially-explicit drivers of forest gain and the locations most likely to experience afforestation in the country using two distinct spatial modelling frameworks: logistic regressions and artificial neural networks (ANN). Five of the eight most significant drivers of forest gain that have influenced past afforestation patterns according to our logistic regressions (i.e., erosion potential, distance from exotic forests, woody grasslands, grassland productivity, and slope) were also ranked among the ten most influential drivers by the ANN model. These results indicate an overall agreement between the two modelling approaches, despite substantial methodological differences. In the absence of changes in current incentives for afforestation in the country, simulations suggest that the largest afforestation areas would be in the northeast region of the North Island. These findings can assist policymakers and landscape planners to achieve desirable land-use objectives for New Zealand.

This research examines trust at the government, industry, community nexus, as mediated by media, and its effect on social licence. We attempted to understand levels and importance of trust in New Zealand's natural resource sectors by examining ways of building, maintaining and assessing public trust in a post-truth society. We surveyed 128 New Zealand public and held a stakeholder forum about perceptions of trust in relation to natural resource sectors. The results provide indications of novel advances around trust and trustworthiness. Honesty was highlighted as the top influencer of trustworthiness and trust, and dishonesty as the top influencer of distrust. In contrast to other literature, we find a nuanced understanding of trust among respondents in relation to the media-respondents distrusted actors cited in media more than the media outlet or platform itself. Further, our findings suggest there is no discernible change in trust levels in the post-truth era, in this context.

Planted forest ecosystems provide a wide range of goods and services such as timber, carbon sequestration, and avoided erosion. However, only ecosystem services with market values (e.g., timber) are usually represented in decision making while those with non-market values (e.g., avoided erosion) that are difficult to quantify are often ignored. A spatial economic tool, the Forest Investment Framework (FIF), integrates data from forest growth models with spatial, biophysical, and economic data, to quantify the broader value of planted forests and to represent non-market values in sustainable forest management. In this paper, we have tested the applicability of FIF in three types of case studies: assessment of afforestation feasibility, regional economic analyses, and ecosystem service assessment. This study provides evidence that a spatial economic tool that quantifies the economic, environmental, and social values of the planted forest ecosystem is valuable in informing land management decisions for maintaining and enhancing the provision of market and non-market ecosystem services to society.

Growing concern about forest degradation and loss, combined with the political impetus supplied by the Earth Summit in 1992, led to the establishment of eleven intergovernmental, regional, and international forest-related processes focused on the use of criteria and indicators (C&I) for sustainable forest management (SFM). Up to 171 countries have participated in these processes to apply C&I frameworks as a tool for data collection, monitoring, assessment, and reporting on SFM and on achieving various forest-related UN Sustainable Development Goals. Based on an expert survey and literature analysis we identify six interlinked impact domains of C&I efforts: (1) enhanced discourse and understanding of SFM; (2) shaped and focused engagement of science in SFM; (3) improved monitoring and reporting on SFM to facilitate transparency and evidence-based decision-making; (4) strengthened forest management practices; (5) facilitated assessment of progress towards SFM goals; and (6) improved forest-related dialog and communication. We conclude that the 25-year history of C&I work in forestry has had significant positive impacts, though challenges do remain for the implementation of C&I and progress towards SFM. The work should be continued and carried over to other sectors to advance sustainability goals more broadly.

This paper focuses on an analysis of planted forests data from the 2015 Forests Resources Assessment of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FRA 2015). It forms one of a series of papers in the FRA 2015 special issue of this journal.While total forest area decreased from 4.28 billion hectares to 3.99 billion hectares from 1990 to 2015, with percent global forest cover dropping from 31.85% to 30.85%, the area of planted forests increased from 167.5 to 277.9 million hectares or 4.06% to 6.95% of total forest area. Increase was most rapid in the temperate zone, and regionally in East Asia, followed by Europe, North America, and Southern and Southeast Asia.However the annualised rate of increase in area of planted forests slowed in the 2010-2015 period to 1.2%, below the 2.4% rate suggested is needed to supply all of the world's timber and fibre needs. The majority of planted forests comprised native species with only 18-19% of the total area being of introduced species. Introduced species were dominant in the southern hemisphere countries of South America, Oceania and Eastern and Southern Africa where industrial forestry is dominant.Twenty countries accounted for 85% of planted forest area and a different 20 countries for 87% of planted forest roundwood supply. As with forest area, roundwood supply from planted forests also showed an increasing trend although this was based on minimal data. There was a mismatch in composition and rankings of the top 20 countries with top forest area and roundwood production suggesting that there are substantial opportunities to increase roundwood production in the future, especially in China which has the largest area but is currently ranked 3rd in roundwood production.Outlook statements were developed for the FAO sub regions based on past changes in planted forest area, population growth, and climate and forest health risks to identify key issues for the future. The overall view from this study suggests that climate impacts, especially from extreme climatic events will affect planted forests in the future and that forest health impacts can also be expected to increase. Outlooks vary regionally. Europe and North America are likely to be most concerned with climate and health risks; Asia will experience population pressure that will impact on land availability for new forests and risks from extreme weather events, and will need to make the most of its existing forests; Africa will need to increase planted forest area to offset continuing deforestation and rapid population growth; and Oceania, the Caribbean, Central and South America are likely to be most concerned with climate impacts. To ensure the continued contribution of planted forests, a number of responses will be required to both maintain existing and also to develop new forests. Intensification of production in existing forests will lessen the need for greater forest areas and offset any land use conflicts related to food security; climate adaptation strategies will need to be developed as a matter of urgency, and forest health focus must remain a priority for research. Establishment of new forests will be eased through greater community and stakeholder engagement. Application of models such as WWF's New Generation Plantations, which recognises the importance of society and the need to consider the full range of forest products and services within the wider landscape and spectrum of land uses, will be important.We recommend that to enable deeper analysis related to planted forests future FRA Assessments consider ways to better gather data specific to planted forests such as productivity so that this important component of global forests can be better understood. (C) 2015 Published by Elsevier B.V.

A review of the international Montréal Process Criteria and Indicators (MP C&I) sustainable forests reporting framework required member countries to benchmark the Indicators against locally held forest values. Children constitute an important subgroup of the local stakeholders in forests: they may respond to forested environments in different ways and may hold values which are unique to their age group. This study reports on the values school children attributed to their local forests, across three New Zealand regions, and details the agreement of these values to the Montréal Process C&I, a values framework developed by international forestry experts.

This overview paper introduces the topic of inter-rotational management of steepland forests and is the first of a series of short papers on post-harvest steepland forest management. These papers focus on: what we know; what research we are currently undertaking in the national Growing Confidence in Forestry’s Future (GCFF) programme funded by the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) and the Forest Growers Levy Trust (FGLT); what we still need to know; and the implications for steepland management. Topics covered are freshwater management, nutrient supply over multiple rotations, the role of tree roots in slope stabilisation, and risk management approaches in erodible terrains. Introduction An opinion piece in this Journal a few years ago discussed the topic of landscape response to forest harvesting (Phillips et al., 2012). That contribution aimed to address the issue of the apparent increasing incidence of localised storm-induced landsliding mobilising woody residue during or after planted forest harvesting and causing debris flows that were affecting houses, roads and bridges downstream of forests in several parts of New Zealand. The topic and how it might be dealt with has been the subject of further more recent papers (Bloomberg & Davies, 2012; Marden et al., 2015; Bloomberg, 2015). In several cases, these storm-induced incidents have featured on national television and in newspaper headlines, with members of the public complaining about the consequences of forestry operations on steep erodible hill country. Forestry companies have proactively responded by developing more detailed environmental impact assessment, erosion and sediment control planning and operational approaches, and by assisting with post-storm clean-up operations. Similarly, regional councils have looked more closely at the environmental impacts of forest harvesting and some have modified erosion and sediment control guidelines, previously largely applied to urban earthworks, for forestry application (e.g. Bryant et al., 2007). In addition, at the national level, the New Zealand Forest Owners Association (NZFOA) and the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) have been instrumental in developing a National Environmental Standard (NES) for Plantation Forestry aimed at standardising planning rules and approaches across the country. The basis for this is an Erosion Susceptibility Classification (ESC) originally developed by Bloomberg et al. (2011) and recently revised by Basher et al. (2015a). This paper and four associated short papers in this issue of the

New Zealand's planted forests sector is the country's third largest export earner. Rising interest in green consumerism is leading to increased demand for scientifically defensible information on the sustainability credentials of forest products. International reporting mechanisms such as the Global Forest Resources Assessment, the Montréal Process and forest certification schemes require reporting on the state and trends in planted forests. Data availability for such reporting is variable. This paper explores the types of issues that arise when evaluating the applicability and usefulness of existing national environmental data sources for reporting, including the compatibility of attribute information, spatial data resolution and coverage, and extending existing data through analysis. We conclude that the data sources could mostly be used, with some provisos and some additional information collection. The recommendations will contribute to a new web-based planted forest information portal under development for New Zealand's planted forests.

of the European Forest Institute (EFIATLANTIC), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Union of Foresters of Southern Europe (USSE).The Congress comprised three

New Zealand's 1.72 million hectares of planted forests constitute a productive ecosystem mainly recognised for the provision of wood and fibre. This ecosystem is increasingly being recognised for providing other services such as recreation, climate change mitigation, habitat provision, improved water quality, bioenergy, erosion control, and flood mitigation. This chapter describes several ecosystem services provided by planted forests and reports some of the estimated economic values for these services. Findings from this study suggest that the estimated economic values for emerging services, such as recreation and biodiversity, remain very limited and in many cases out of date. More studies using state-of-the-art methods of economic valuation that account for both time and space are required.

The national assessment of New Zealand’s planted forests is required for economic and environmental monitoring and for international reporting to organ isations such as FAO and the Montreal Process. Spat ial techniques can aid in determining national planted forest information; two approaches are described in this presentation. Firstly a number of national spatial datasets were investigated for their potential to c ontribute to the reporting on forest sustainability indicators. Seco ndly, spatial data was combined with non-spatial da ta to develop visual representations for enhanced reporting. For the investigation of national spatial datasets for reporting, one of the issues was to determine h ow well national datasets meet sustainability reporting req uirements. One method to determine this is to compare national data with data at a higher resolution; from this th e error margins in the reporting can be estimated. For example, one of the Montreal Process (MP) indicators (4.3.a) requires reporting on the proportion of forest man agement activities that meet best practice for protecting w ater resources. Riparian strips around waterways is one such practise; by overlaying GIS data of different resol utions for a number of case study areas and summing the differences in the riparian areas of each data set, it was determined that the resolution of the natio nal datasets would be inadequate for reporting on riparian pract ices. Using the same case study data, the effect of deducting the riparian areas from the national planted forest area (MP 2.a Area of forest land for wood producti on) indicated that the national datasets could over-est imate the land under productive forestry by up to 6 %. Monitoring based on sampling provides another avenue for generating reporting data; national datasets were used to guide the locations of national monitoring sites . A sampling approach developed by Environment Waikato for monitoring significant soil erosion, based on aeria l photography evaluations of sample points on a 2km grid, was applied to the whole country. The grid points were overlaid in GIS with land cover and erosion suscept ibility data, and the sampling intensity of particularly th e highly erodible forest lands was determined. This verified that the approach would be useful for national soil repo rting (MP 4.2.b Area of forest land with soil degra dation) though implementation of the approach on only areas of high risk could miss impacts elsewhere. Water quality monitoring is another field that reli es on a sampling approach; planted forest water qua lity reporting (MP 4.3.b water bodies in forest areas wi th significant changes) is based on those national water quality monitoring sites specifically for monitoring water flows from exotic forest catchments. The locations of these monitoring sites were assessed based on national GI S datasets. Land cover, river and catchment data we re combined to analyse whether the existing water monitoring sites are representative of exotic forest ca tchments, and to identify potential additional sites. The ana lysis determined that a number of the existing plan ted forest monitoring sites have other production land uses up -stream from their locations, such as grazed pastur e. In addition, different types of river environments are were found to be underrepresented in the national approach for monitoring water from planted forest. A number of new sites were recommended for this monitoring. Finally, a number of visual representations of the sustainability data were explored for the reporting of national forest data. The aim was to provide a quick overvie w of the state of sustainability indicators. The ap proach needed to cope with such issues as mixing quantitat ive and qualitative data, and variable numbers of i ndicators

Nearly 4 % of the world's forests are plantations, established to provide a variety of ecosystem services, principally timber and other wood products. In addition to such services, plantation forests provide direct and indirect benefits to biodiversity via the provision of forest habitat for a wide range of species, and by reducing negative impacts on natural forests by offsetting the need to extract resources. There is compelling evidence that climate change is directly affecting biodiversity in forests throughout the world. These impacts occur as a result of changes in temperature, rainfall, storm frequency and magnitude, fire frequency, and the frequency and magnitude of pest and disease outbreaks. However, in plantation forests it is not only the direct effects of climate change that will impact on biodiversity. Climate change will have strong indirect effects on biodiversity in plantation forests via changes in forest management actions that have been proposed to mitigate the effects of climate change on the productive capacity of plantations. These include changes in species selection (including use of species mixtures), rotation length, thinning, pruning, extraction of bioenergy feedstocks, and large scale climate change driven afforestation, reforestation, and, potentially deforestation. By bringing together the potential direct and indirect impacts of climate change we conclude that in the short to medium term changes in plantation management designed to mitigate or adapt to climate change could have a significantly greater impact on biodiversity in such plantation forests than the direct effects of climate change. Although this hypothesis remains to be formally tested, forest managers worldwide are already considering new approaches to plantation forestry in an effort to create forests that are more resilient to the effects of changing climatic conditions. Such change presents significant risks to existing biodiversity values in plantation forests, however it also provides new opportunities to improve biodiversity values within existing and new plantation forests. We conclude by suggesting future options, such as functional zoning and species mixtures applied at either the stand level or as fine-scale mosaics of single-species stands as options to improve biodiversity whilst increasing resilience to climate change.

"Risk intelligence" is a necessary adjunct to management and planning in land and water resource protection and productivity. Following a brief review of how risk is quantified, packaged and sold in the financial sector, risk management in land and water resource management in New Zealand is assessed in the light of the 2007-2009 global financial meltdown. Conventional planning approaches for scenario planning do not accommodate the wide complexities of risk management because of their inability to adequately quantify and forecast risk for value creation. A case study using a farm in Rotorua, New Zealand, is employed to explore how farming risks in terms of nitrate leaching, phosphorus loss, sedimentation and biodiversity loss, may be minimised in exchange for value creation. Historical variance and trends of simulated variables is estimated through random sampling for future trends using Beta, Triangular and Two-sided Power distributions and Monte Carlo simulations. Despite all three statistical distributions performing relatively well, the choice of the most appropriate one will ultimately be determined by expert judgement.