The Naseby Forest covers over 2,500 hectares. The forest lies in the foothills of the Mount Ida Range, with Naseby township nestled in on it’s eastern edge. The forest provides a dark green contrast to the tussock covered hills to the north and the agricultural land of the Maniototo Plain to the south.
Planted at an attitude of 600-850 metres, the forest is the highest altitude exotic timber production in the South Island. It is a forest of extremes as it has the lowest temperatures, humilities, and rainfall and highest winds and temperatures of all New Zealand forests.
The Maniototo Plain was naturally treeless, so timber for early building and construction in the region was scarce and expensive. In 1900, the then Lands Department planted 15 hectares of trees in a small block. This area now known as the Black Forest was the beginning of the Naseby Forest. It is opposite the golf course south-west of the Naseby township. Now a picnic area shaded by large ponderosa and Douglas fir trees.
The trees for the first plantings were grown at Eweburn Nursery in Ranfurly in 1896. This was the first official forest nursery in New Zealand. By 1921 seedling trees were also grown in the forest. When the smallness of these nurseries proved uneconomic they were closed in the late 1920’s.
Tree planting continued steadily until a lull brought about by WW2. From 1938 to 1951 only 10 hectares were planted.
In the 1970’s seedlings for the forest come from the old Timberlands nursery at Edendale , near Invercargill. The annual planting averaging 25 hectares in the 1970’sand it is these trees were are being now harvested.
The main trees planted were the Douglas Fir, larch and Corsican and ponderosa pines.
