We are now in the fourth year of the United Nations (UN) Decade of Ecological Restoration, and global restoration of degraded landscapes is happening across the planet (United Nations, 2020). In NZ, the Climate Change Commission has advocated for afforestation to be used as a tool to help meet urgent climate mitigation goals, with areas of 500,000 ha and 280,000 ha proposed for exotic and native forest respectively (Climate Change Commission, 2023). Ecological restoration is particularly emphasised in regions which have little remaining indigenous cover, such as Canterbury, which is estimated in the 2008 Biodiversity strategy to contain less than 10% of the original species cover (Biodiversity Strategy Advisory Group, 2008). Climate and ecological goals have focused the attention of regional and national agencies on the need for afforestation across the Canterbury region to prevent biodiversity loss, protect against flood damage and to sequester carbon. The rationale for establishing indigenous forests may also be heavily intertwined with cultural and biodiversity conservation objectives.

Increased attention on restoration by the public has resulted in a surge of ‘ground up’ initiatives seeking to restore representative indigenous vegetation. Approaches vary, with some advocating for minimal interference and a high degree of natural regeneration, and others seeing active management as necessary in modified environments where larger areas are desired to be afforested within shorter timeframes than those allowed by natural processes. Yet others see planting as necessary to introduce key species to a site currently uninhabited by them, particularly those where other factors (like dense exotic grasses) prevent native revegetation processes. Afforestation through natural regeneration processes is not included in this research.

There are a range of associated activities which are usually very important for successful establishment and continued growth of planted forest species. These include browsing animal control, fencing, and spraying or weeding of unwanted competing plant species. Although these associated activities are also vital to successful natural regeneration, this project focuses on planting activities only.

With increased global, national and regional drivers for forest restoration, many groups have been engaging in native restoration plantings, however a good estimate of the total area of land successfully afforested in NZ is unknown. For the Canterbury regions, this research seeks to identify who is involved, how much restoration planting occurred in 2023, why people plant natives, what species characterise plantings, and what planting techniques are prevalent and anecdotally helping with effective establishment. Previous work has been done to find the motivations for planting, and the methods planters use to establish plants, with this project aiming to add region-specific, recent information to the current body of knowledge. This project also seeks to use total nursery sales of native plants over the research period to understand coverage of planting organisations. While nursery surveys provide some of this information at a national scale (Native Nursery Survey 2022 Main Report, 2023), it is not available at a regional resolution.

The core research objective is to describe and quantify recent restoration efforts in Canterbury and is broken down into 4 research questions.

1. How many and what indigenous tree species were sold and planted for the purpose of forest restoration in 2023 in the Canterbury region? This question will examine the species composition of native plantings, and the number and density of seedlings planted.
2. What are the objectives and motivations driving organised groups of people to plant native species in this region?
3. What ongoing monitoring and reporting is done as part of restoration plantings and what has been found to contribute most to successful establishment of native plants?
4. How was forest restoration funded and what was the funding cost of identified restoration activities in 2023?