Peter Handford
Peter is a NZIF Registered Forestry Consultant who has over the last 35 years worked in plantation forest management, biodiversity monitoring and management and sustainable land management.
Peter is a strong advocate for integrated land use – planning and managing our landscapes to ensure the right land use in the right place. Managing forests and lands to provide long term environmental, economic and social benefits.
He is a founder and managing director of Groundtruth which provides planning and implementation of integrated land and forest management projects around the country. Groundtruth was established in 2002 and operates services in consultancy, forest management, and technology.
Over the last 10 years Peter and the team at Groundtruth have worked to develop and implement processes for large scale native forest restoration. Establishment of native forests has been stuck in first gear for a long time now. We now have the opportunity to work at a much larger, landscape scale.
Through experience across exotic and indigenous forests and biodiversity management Peter is increasingly working on blended forest projects restoring and transitioning areas of exotic plantation to native forest, along side radiata pine and special purpose timber species forest management.
We need to transition our forest landscapes to the point where they support our unique biodiversity, assist us through the challenges of climate change, sustain community livelihoods and are proudly part of our cultural identity. This requires using our toolbox of science, matauranga and practical experience. We need to work together and get on with it.