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2.2 Classification of Native Forests
Authors: J L Nicholls, J W HerbertPublication: NZIF Forestry Handbook, Volume Section 2 – Indigenous forests, pp 2, Dec 2023
Publisher: New Zealand Institute of Forestry
Abstract: The stratification of forests into types or communities is routine practice in primary forest survey and inventory, whether this is designed as a basis for resources management or scientific research. In New Zealand, forestry-type classifications have been devised independently time and again for particular areas of native forest that have been surveyed for either purpose. Good examples in published works may be found in Baylis et al (1963), Chavasse, (1964), Hamilton, (1961), Holloway, (1946), Morris, (1959), Wardle et al, (1973), McKelvey, (1963 & 1984), and Wardle, (1984). On the completion of the timber-assessment phase of the National Forest Survey in 1956, it was apparent that a universal classification of the country’s forest types was needed for the broad planning of native forest management. With the great diversity of the forests in mind, it was clear that only a simple system of cover-types would be realistic. Each type should be distinguished solely by whatever tree species might be consistently present over a reasonably large area, leaving sub-division based on other criteria until circumstances requiring this might arise in some management or research situation.