National Centre of Excellence for the Forest and Wood Industry

The National Centre for the Forest and Wood Industry, built on the Rotorua campus in 2008, is the result of a partnership between Toi Ohomai, Competenz, and University of Auckland.

The Centre supports courses associated with the forestry and timber industries. It includes mechanised harvesting simulators and a computer suite featuring specialist software and technology relating to forest mapping, forest operations and timber applications.

Our forestry programme is New Zealand’s largest vocational forestry training programme. It was established at the Waipā sawmill site in 1940 by the New Zealand government to provide training in plantation forest management, sawmilling and wood manufacturing.

Our students enjoy state-of-the-art training equipment and facilities for resource management, forest operations, wood manufacturing, environmental sustainability, agriculture and horticulture.