What motivates tree planters?
When talking to land owners who are committed tree planters, three main character traits become apparent. They have a long term perspective often in consideration of their families, and a deep sympathy for appropriate and sustainable land uses. Their view of "long term" does not mean the five years often envisaged by agricultural commentators, but is measured in numbers of decades, or generations. They round off these attitudes with an understanding of how trees complement the agricultural land use. (See Understanding Trees on Farms.)

These land owners are no richer and have no more spare time than other farmers. Their belief that they are "stewards" of the land itself and have a responsibility to the future prosperity of their family, has more in common with the larger European estates than New Zealand's more common pioneering, and therefore adversarial, attitude toward land use.

A number of surveys of tree planting farmers' attitudes towards planting trees have come up with the same general response. The main benefits cited start with stock and crop shelter, followed closely by those relating to land use, for example; a perpetually reverting area, difficult and expensive to maintain in grass; an area prone to soil erosion with declining pastoral productivity; a problem area for stock, or; a poorly utilised face with low carrying capacity yet considered ideal for trees.

The eventual investment value of trees is considered to be less important than the improvements trees can make to farm management and to the lands productive potential.

This is in spite of the often very good knowledge of the high financial returns available from trees. The point is obvious; improving the land's productive potential is more important, even if it takes a long time. Even effective erosion control and shelter take many years to achieve, yet they consider the wait worthwhile.

There are many people still planting and tending trees into their twilight years. These people believe they are DEVELOPING their land by converting certain areas from pastoralism to forestry. In the same way that people unquestioningly develop their children as individuals, they develop their land.

The question of "development"
The current moves towards promoting "sustainable" land uses have not been helped by our recent past, and particularly by attitudes towards "development". There is still an underlying belief amongst some farmers agricultural potential, often in the short term, without consideration of the future viability of that land use. In the past, forests were cleared because they were "unproductive", and for some people, a move back to trees is considered a reversal of all the "good" work undertaken in the past.

With the crisis situation in the Mackenzie country, and with some other areas of New Zealand hill country, obviously nearing crisis level, this narrow definition of "development" has clearly been shown to be wrong.

Development is actually defined as converting land to realise its potential. This process must take into account the long term, as sustainable land practices may not become apparent for generations. But, most importantly, it involves an optimisation of the appropriate mix of land uses over a particular area of land.

Planting trees on areas unsustainable in agriculture is true 'development' of that land as many farm foresters have realised.

Changing their attitude to development is a major challenge facing many former advocates of maximum, short ter, agricultural production.

What's in it for me?
There are many benefits of trees on farms which become apparent in the medium term (shelter, soil erosion control, more management options, etc as detailed in "Understanding Trees on Farms"). There are also considerable financial benefits to the farm business, your future retirement options, the farm's value, the farm's productive potential, and to your immediate rural economy, in the long term.

Returns from trees may take from 30 to 60 years, depending on species and growing conditions. Many people see this as a prohibitively long payback period. This is often because people's perspective of time relates to their own working lives rather than the perspectives needed to ensure sustainable land practices. Abuse of land can take many generations to reach a crisis level. Reversing that situation will also take time.

The answer to the question of "what's in it for me?" is that intermediate and less tangible returns will be available throughout the rotation, and tangible financial returns could easily occur in your working life or retirement if you plant trees now.

In reality the question is not appropriate if you are serious about the land's and your family's productive and economic future. The question is the antithesis of the quote at the beginning of this article and today's picture postcard image of European landscapes interspersed with traditional woodlots, would not exist if such an attitude became prevalent amongst those farmers. The time involved between planting and harvest of trees in Europe is considerably longer than New Zealand's potential, even for the high country.

Those plantings rely on a tradition, and to some extent every planting of a tree for long term return is an act of faith. This was illustrated by the proud historic tradition of Otago and Canterbury, where settlers planted slow maturing trees such as the Botanic Gardens of Dunedin and Christchurch knowing that it would not be themselves that would gain the greatest value from their actions.