The Fiji Pine Limited has set an unprecedented planting target of 73,000 hectares for this year.

The Fiji Pine Limited has set an unprecedented planting target of 7,300 hectares for this year.

Chief Executive Vimlesh Kumar says this will be covered by all the six Stations which they aim to achieve by this year.

Kumar says so far, they have already planted 2,757 hectares.

He says over the past two years, Fiji Pine has revived forest stations, engaged several planting gangs and built a new nursery at Drasa in Lautoka to assist their planting operations.

“This nursery was built during the COVID-19 pandemic. As the pandemic struck, we were significantly affected, our sawn timber demand actually crashed but we as a responsible employer decided we will find alternative work for our factory workers.”

Kumar says this has also created around 30 new jobs which the landowners have taken on.

He highlighted the key aspect of having nurseries at the six locations is for them to have a sustainable forest resource.

This is because it takes 25-30 years for pine trees to mature for harvesting.

Since 2011, the pine company has planted a total of 19,611 hectares and last year, they recorded the highest planting target ever of 4,300ha.