The price of diesel has led to some forestry harvests being halted around the country.
In the worst cases, managers say forest owners would make no return – or a loss – because heavy machinery has become so expensive to run.
Farm Forestry Association president Dougal Morrison told 1News the latest figures from ports today showed a 30% reduction in log volumes compared to previous months.
"That's huge," he said, attributing the drop to diesel prices.
"Fuel is used in the harvesting equipment and you've got the transport – the logging trucks on the roads – and the ships exporting the logs as well."
Northland company Tree People has no more felling booked after this month, as all clients halted harvesting work.
Director Peter Davies-Colley said: "It doesn't make sense for them to harvest on the day that high fuel prices means that their forest isn't worth anything."
His staff would do tree maintenance instead but there were concerns other employers wouldn't be able to keep workers on.
"The major crisis for our industry is when you lose that skillset because you don't build these teams quickly."
Morrison said: "Even though [workers] might have gone through all the formal training and qualifications, suddenly they're not able to use them. It makes it very hard for them."
Hundreds of millions of dollars were estimated to have been spent in recent years, across the industry in Aotearoa, on upgrading machinery for safer work and efficiency.
Forest Industry Contractors Association chief executive Rowan Struthers said: “Since about 2013, probably $300 million or so has been invested, capital has been invested, and most of that investment has come from contractors.
“These contractors are family-owned businesses... That might own two to three crews, anywhere from 10 to 30 employees. These are the group that are most at risk during this fuel crisis because of the level of capital investment that they've made."
While electrification would be part of the future, it was still being tested here, he said, with trials of electric loaders, and electric log trucks, and hybrid harvest machinery.
Otago logging contractor Steve Jones told 1News his work was still continuing currently but he had "sleepless nights" watching the US president's decisions – and diesel spiking up to $4 a litre – while trying to manage forest contracts.
"Because you just don't know, when the guy over there mentions a word, and the price goes up 30 cents."
Forest360 director Marcus Musson said beyond logging crews, he was also concerned for mills.
"There are a lot of sawmills out there that are having to take shifts out because they simply don't have the log availability anymore."
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