The company

Juken Nissho was formed for the 1990 purchase of licences to run previously publicly owned forests covering nearly 600 km² of Northland, the Wairarapa

Wairarapa

Wairarapa is a geographical region of New Zealand. It occupies the south-eastern corner of the North Island, east of metropolitan Wellington and south-west of the Hawke's Bay region. It is lightly populated, having several rural service towns, with Masterton being the largest...

 and East Cape

East Cape

East Cape is the easternmost point of the main islands of New Zealand. It is located to the north of Gisborne in the northeast of the North Island....

. It operates plants at Kaitaia

Kaitaia

Kaitaia is a town in the far north region of New Zealand, at the base of the Aupouri Peninsula which is about 160 km northwest of Whangarei. It is the last major settlement on the main road north to the capes and bays on the peninsula...

, Masterton

Masterton

Masterton is a large town and local government district in the Wellington Region of New Zealand. It is the largest town in the Wairarapa, a region separated from Wellington by the Rimutaka ranges...

 and Gisborne

Gisborne, New Zealand

-Economy:The harbour was host to many ships in the past and had developed as a river port to provide a more secure location for shipping compared with the open roadstead of Poverty Bay which can be exposed to southerly swells. A meat works was sited beside the harbour and meat and wool was shipped...

 and employs around 1,000 New Zealanders largely as labourers.

At present Juken Nissho controls around 550 km² of Pinus radiata, Douglas Fir and Corsican Pine. Juken Nissho manufactures and markets timber panel products under the Triboard, Spaceboard and Strandboard brands. Triboard, conceived in the 1980s, competes with older technologies such as particleboard and MDF

Medium-density fibreboard

Medium-density fiberboard is an engineered wood product formed by breaking down hardwood or softwood residuals into wood fibres, often in a defibrator, combining it with wax and a resin binder, and forming panels by applying high temperature and pressure...

.

Criticism

Juken Nissho states it has invested over $600 million New Zealand dollars in the country, but has attracted criticism from unions and the political left,
for alleged pollution, for disregard of employees and for the funding arrangement by which the investment was made, (it was alleged the Japanese investors founded a limited liability company to buy New Zealand assets using the assets as the only security, without committing any capital or taking on any risk). Juken Nissho was successfully prosecuted by the Northland Regional Council for discharge of contaminants into air in 1998 and won the Roger Award

Roger Award

The Roger Award For The Worst Transnational Corporation Operating in New Zealand is an annual media campaign run since 1997 by two activist organisations, Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa and GATT Watchdog...

for The Worst Transnational Corporation in New Zealand in 2003

however has since significantly reduced emissions, increased safety and made major efforts to become more environmentally friendly
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External links

• Juken Nissho Ltd website
• Juken Nissho Ltd - company profile
• Roger Award story