Forestry - Planted production forest area 1921–2025

Until 1987, the statistics were compiled by the New Zealand Forest Service. The figures for 1987 onwards are estimates from NEFD surveys.
The total planted forest areas have been estimated independently from new planted forest areas.
Prior to 1987, "State" refers principally to the forests planted or managed by the New Zealand Forest Service. Since 1987, "State" refers primarily to the forests owned or managed by State-owned enterprises and West Coast and Maori lease forests managed by the Ministry for Primary Industries.
Private afforestation figures are based on incomplete historical data, and considerable estimation has taken place.

Afforestation: The planting of trees for the primary purpose of producing wood or wood fibre, on land that has not previously been used for growing planted production forests.
Forest area: Net stocked planted production forest area.
Net stocked forest area: The planted production forest area occupied by trees, excluding mappable gaps such as landings, roads and other unstocked areas.

https://www.mpi.govt.nz/forestry/forest-industry-and-workforce/forestry-wood-processing-data/new-zealand-forest-data/about-the-national-exotic-forest-description-survey/

At URL provided, select 'National Exotic Forest Description 2025' > 'Download the 2025 NEFD tables [XLSX, 100 KB]'.
Some sheets were combined by Figure.NZ for processing purposes.

The National Exotic Forest Description (NEFD) provides a detailed description of New Zealand’s planted production forest to help with resource policy planning and industry development.

To maintain an authoritative, high quality database of New Zealand’s production forests.

The NEFD surveys known forest owners and managers with at least 40 hectares of planted exotic production forest. The survey is run on a two-yearly cycle, where all known forest owners with 40 or more hectares of forest are surveyed one year (census), and the next year only owners with more than 1,000 hectares (sample).