Message from Erica Kinder

(CEO of SNI Wood Council)

It was a well-timed event for our Southern North Island Wood Council to hold the Forestry Awards on the night of 12 May 2023 in Palmerston North. 410 members of our forestry community from across the lower North Island came together to finally find something to celebrate and have a good catch up over a buffet dinner, drinks and entertainment that are provided as part of this event. Thirteen trophies were awarded from a record pool of 74 nominees across the categories. A social media campaign titled, “Nominate a Mate” that was released over Instagram and Facebook by our Wood Council in the weeks leading up to the event resulted in more nominations than ever from the contractor members nominating each other, and many new faces were drawn into the awards that is an annual highlight for the SNI Wood Council.

“This year the focus of the evening was really on the nominees with slideshows playing during the evening showing every nominee out in their workplace and spot prizes handed out as part of the awards. We really needed a night to get together, celebrate ourselves for once and send our 410 attendees back out there as advocates for the sector, with some good stories to tell. I think as a Wood Council, we pulled together an amazing event.” “Forestry has seen a slew of negative media in previous months, many contractors and businesses are under pressure with the damaging comments persisting. These have affected the health of our forestry workplaces and it is our responsibility to counter these often inaccurate and aggressive styles of reporting misinformation with examples of what is really happening in forestry. It remains a goal of Southern North Island Wood Council to provide insight into the hundreds of people working in forestry, good news stories of their workplaces, and shine a spotlight on the giant contribution forestry has to our local economies and the environment.”

“We will continue to hold these awards every year, as well as maintain our range of social license programs and continue to prove accurate information about forestry to the public. This is how we can oppose the pessimism and misinformation about our sector, we’ll show people how it really is - a fantastic and vibrate growing sector employing more than 40,000 people and contributing to clean water, decreased erosion, offsetting our emissions, providing more than 6 billion dollars to the economy while ensuring our country has enough wood for all our needs.”