New Zealand’s State Forest Service and the forest management policies it implemented were shaped by its first director, Canadian Leon MacIntosh Ellis. Ellis was a strong proponent of plantation forestry and one of his most noticeable legacies, still very apparent today, is the extensive plantation forests of the central North Island.

Ellis was born on 17 July 1887 in Meaford, Ontario, Canada. He graduated with a BSc (Hons) in forestry from the University of Toronto in 1911. In 1919 he was interviewed for the Director of Forests position in New Zealand’s newly created Forestry Department, and arrived to take up the position the following year. Continue reading →