A small central North Island town on the foothills of Te Urewera - where one in five people is employed full-time - is about to get a big boost.
The Government has announced the Minginui nursery which currently employs about nine people will start churning out native seedlings for the Crown's plan to plant a billion trees.
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Those nine employees are expected to become 90.
Regional Economic Development Minister and Forestry Minister Shane Jones says the nursery will get $6 million over three years to grow up to a million native trees each year.
That funding will come from the Government's $1b a year Provincial Growth Fund.
When National's Chris Finlayson visited the town as Treaty Negotiations Minister in 2016, he told The Hui he was shocked "fellow New Zealanders lived in such atrocious conditions".
The native plant nursery is a joint venture between the Crown and iwi Ngati Whare that has been running for two years.
Newshub.
