Minister of Corrections Hon Damien O’Connor and Corrections Inmate Employment Forestry Instructor
Willie Tulloch, with one of the Tongariro/Rangipo Prison forestry crews planting out new forest.
Crews totalling 50-60 prisoners from Tongariro/Rangipo Prison near Turangi are learning forestry skills while planting and maintaining the 4300 hectare forest on-site at the prison.
Corrections Minister Hon Damien O’Connor met a crew planting out new forest on July 18.
Mr O’Connor says the forest is one of 140 operations run by Corrections Inmate Employment (CIE) to provide prisoners with job skills and training to use on release.
Each year 75,000 cubic metres of timber is harvested from the prison forest, which has been in operation since the early 1920s.
Forest Manager Graham Hardisty says the prisoners who plant, prune, thin and maintain the tree crop “enjoy getting outdoors and learning new skills”.
To date 104 prisoners around the country have acquired New Zealand Qualifications Authority unit standards for basic forestry skills, chainsaw use and maintenance, pruning, planting and felling of small trees. Of these, 73 received their training at Tongariro/Rangipo Prison.
Graham says prisoners are known to be using these skills after gaining employment upon release, not just in forestry but related vocations such as landscaping.
Around 1750 of the 8000 prisoners in New Zealand are employed by CIE in operations as broad-ranging as farming, timber industries, engineering, printing, horticulture, catering and service distribution. A further 1700 work in prison employment such as cleaning.
Mr O’Connor says a Prisoner Employment Strategy launched a year ago aims to increase the number in meaningful employment and training to 60 percent of the muster by 2009.
“It’s pleasing to see first-hand the wide range of work skills being learned in prison, and the progress being made implementing the strategy,” he says.
In addition to the forest at Tongariro/Rangipo, other forestry operations throughout the country include four crews (average eight in a crew) that contract out from Hawke’s Bay Prison to Pan Pac Forest Products Limited to do pruning, two crews out of Invercargill Prison contract pruning for CraigPine Timber Limited, and two crews at Rolleston Prison in Christchurch who cut firewood and do other forestry work.
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ISSN 1178-8453