Getting 2026 Off to a Safe Start

Held across the country in January, this year’s SafeStart meetings marked a significant milestone in how the business approaches health and safety across its forestry operations. More than 600 people attended sessions in Wellsford, Tauranga, Napier, Christchurch and Invercargill, including contractors, industry organisations and representatives from other forest owners.

The events introduced the concept of Critical Risk Management, a new approach which will be formally rolled out across the business this year. The focus is on identifying and controlling the risks that have the potential to cause fatal or life-altering injuries, particularly those associated with high-energy hazards.

Guest speaker, Josh Bryant from Mitchell Drilling Services in Australia, brought these concepts to life in his talks. Operating in the high-risk mining sector, Mitchell Drilling has successfully embedded critical risk management and Human and Organisational Performance (HOP) principles into everyday work.  These include the idea that people are fallible and mistakes are normal. Rather than relying on luck, the goal is to build systems that allow people to fail safely. Practical tools such as the ‘4 D’s’ (Difficult, Different, Doesn’t make sense, Dangerous) helped guide conversations about learning from everyday work - not just when incidents occur.

Josh also shared how critical risks are identified by first understanding sources of energy and then designing work so exposure is controlled through strong, engineered and fail-safe controls - an approach closely aligned with the direction Matariki Forests is taking.

“Safestart 2026 was not just about safety - it was about learning, leadership, and making forestry work better, safer, and more productive for everyone involved,” says Claude Hendrikse, Health and Safety Advisor at Matariki Forests.

“Introducing critical risk management and HOP principles sets an exciting foundation for how we manage risk in the future, putting our people in the best possible position to start the year safely.  This is the beginning of a new way of thinking about safety and managing risk across the business.”

Above photo: The Matariki Forests team take SafeStarts around the country. 
From left to right: Al Brown - Managing Director, Will Stewart- Northland Regional Manager, Wayne Dempster – Director, Health & Safety, Josh Bryant - General Manager - People, Risk and Sustainability  at Mitchell Drilling Services, Australia (guest speaker) and Claude Hendrikse – Matariki Forests Health and Safety Advisor.