I think your mixing up what they call in NZ 'native forest' v...

I think your mixing up what they call in NZ 'native forest' v 'exotic forest'. In NZ there has been widespread planting of low value farmland with pine trees, they call this an 'exotic forest'. These trees were planted for the sole purpose of harvesting for wood. After 25 years they are chopped down and the land is replanted in the next batch. I would call these trees renewable.

Deforestation is where you chop down trees and turn the land into farmland, that is not happening in this case, actually the exact opposite.

When they chop down the trees they tend to chop off all the branches and the skinny top part of the tree and leave it behind to rot on the ground, this is referred to as 'slash'. Its the slash they are looking at turning into graphite. I think it is a good idea, turning a waste product into something of value.

I would love to know the process they use to convert a tree branch into graphite, suspect it is more energy intensive than they are letting on. Which is probably the second reason they picked NZ is because of the 95% renewal power generation.