Countries

Forests and the forestry sector

Resources
The Republic of Niue is located in the South Pacific Ocean about 460 km east of Tonga. The island has an area of about 260 km2. An elevated coral atoll composed entirely of two terraces of coral limestone, Niue lies in the south-east tradewind belt and was once covered by closed forest. This vegetation has been highly modified by shifting agricultural practices that have created a mosaic of cultivated plots and fallow lands in various stages of succession to scrub and secondary forest.

A substantial portion of Niue is covered with scrub or bush type vegetation and several thousand hectares of dense indigenous forest. Roughly 50 percent of Niue is under forest or wooded land, though only a small proportion is considered merchantable, the remainder being scattered or coastal forest. Niue has incurred significant deforestation during the past 20 years. The primary cause of deforestation is clearing for subsistence gardening. Niue is operating a small plantation establishment programme planting mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla) and Toona australis.

There are no large-scale forest industries in this country. Niue produces small amounts of chainsaw-milled sawn timber for domestic consumption.

Constraints
The forestry sector of Niue, as well as many small island developing states (SIDS), faces the problems of:

• limited land area and natural resources;
• vulnerability to environmental disasters, such as cyclones and hurricanes;
• high species endemism but low occurrence of individual species, leading to high risk for loss of biological diversity;
• high human population density, usually concentrated in lowland areas, which increases pressure on already limited resources;
• economic constraints due to relatively small scale;
• institutional constraints (including high levels of migration, particularly of skilled human resources).

Last updated: August 2002