About Us

Our Staff

A forestry graduate from the Netherlands, Kees met Kay in Nepal and they arrived home in Gisborne in 1987. He now runs Forest Measurement Ltd, a forestry consultant and contracting business. He believes the goal to grow one's own food is in every man's heart and that's one of the reasons he started Knapdale Farm.

About Forest Measurement New Zealand Limited

A company specializing in providing accurate and consistent forest information to forest owners to enhance their operational and strategic decision making processes, was established in 1994. Forest Measurement is owned by Kees Weytmans and his abridged CV follows:

1979 Tropical forest inventory in Surinam, South America and validating volume equations through the Surinamese Forest Service and the Dutch School of Forestry.

1980-1982 Integrated Rural Development Programme, Timber Supply Officer to the Project, forest inventory and community forestry development through GTZ, Bonn.

1983-1984 Firewood plantations establishment in Somalia through CARE International, New York.

1985-1987 Community forestry and nursery establishment in Nepal through VSO, London.

1988-1998 Growing and exporting muskmelons to Japan through Sunrise Coast.

1994- present Inventory and technical forest services under the name Forest Care (Gisborne) Ltd. We changed our name to Forest Measurement NZ Ltd in 2002 in order to provide focus to the measurement as opposed to management of forest resources.

2001-2005 GeoMetrics. The spatial services and mapping sub division of Forest Measurement NZ Ltd, now discontinued.

2004- present Developing Knapdale Eco Lodge on sustainable and semi permacultural principles in order to provide an outstanding and safe eco experience and accommodation & hospitality services.

2006 Kees was awarded the Husqvarna Farm Forester of the Year Award by the NZFFA for the quality and variety of exotic and indigenous tree planting at Knapdale since 1991.