IKEA's Hawke's Bay pine tree expansion hits issues

Friday 12 Dec 2025

 
The highly anticipated opening of Swedish furniture company IKEA in New Zealand comes as a rural community worries about the fire risk from pine plantations. Since 2020 IKEA has converted six Central Hawke's Bay farms into pine forestry, which they believe makes them the largest forestry owner in the district.

This move, combined with the sale of at least four other Hawke's Bay farms to overseas forestry companies this year, is sparking concerns from locals about the loss of productive farmland and the risks associated with converting large areas into pines.

To better understand the scale of this land-use change, Porangahau farmer James Hunter and pilot Joe Faram flew RNZ over thousands of hectares of new pine trees that now cover what had been traditional farmland for generations.

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Source: RNZ


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