Between 1500 and 2000 hectares of forests in the Otago and Southland region were damaged in last October’s windstorm, according to the latest assessment published by the New Zealand Forest Service. As reported by the NZ-based Farmers Weekly today, 150kph winds that tore through the region on October 23 left a patchwork of destruction across southern forests, with losses concentrated in exposed coastal areas.
Among the hardest hit was City Forests, which manages a 25,000-hectare estate across Otago–Southland. The company estimates it lost around 500 hectares, mostly within its South Otago coastal forests. That follows earlier estimates from Wenita Forest Products, which reported about 250 hectares of damage in the same coastal belt.
But despite the scale of the event, City Forests chief executive Grant Dodson said the region has so far avoided the extreme weather seen in parts of the North Island. “We always lose a few trees, but nothing out of the ordinary,” he said.
Dodson said the storm’s most destructive period lasted less than an hour, yet the pattern of damage was highly irregular. “There were runs down gullies, pockets on ridges, it was all very random.”
Many of the affected trees were already scheduled for harvest within the next five years, allowing crews to be redirected to salvage windthrown timber. Dodson expects it will take about a year before operations return to normal. “It is a setback, but not catastrophic.”
He noted that fully mechanised logging crews have significantly improved the safety of the recovery effort, warning that farmers and landowners should be cautious when dealing with toppled trees. “If they misread a log wrong, it can blow up.”
Trees lying under tension can release enormous stored energy when cut, posing serious risks.
Wenita chief executive David Cormack said their damage was largely confined to two blocks south of Dunedin — Berwick and Otago Coast. Like City Forests, he described the storm’s impact as sporadic, with pockets of heavy destruction alongside areas barely touched.
Cormack said the immediate priority is recovering radiata pine that snapped off the stem, as quality declines quickly once the tree is on the ground. Trees still attached to the stem can survive longer, giving crews more time to work through the backlog. Salvage operations will continue for several months, replacing scheduled harvesting.
To restore uniformity in affected stands, Wenita also plans to harvest undamaged trees adjacent to wind‑thrown areas. In total, around 500 hectares will eventually be harvested as a result of the storm.
