THE PRESS THURSDAY, JULY 7, 1977. The future of the forests

Press, 7 July 1977, Page 16

THE PRESS THURSDAY, JULY 7, 1977. The future of the forests

The conflicting opinions expressed at the seminar on the West Coast’s forests in Hokitika last week and the information in the three major reports issued during and before the seminar should enable the Government to make, at last, the necessary but difficult decisions about the future of the forests. Conflicting opinions were expressed with vehemence in Hokitika, but the Government should not be discouraged from devising a detailed policy on the forests and on development of the West Coast to satisfy, as far as possible, both those who are anxious to see most of the Coast’s remaining native forests preserved and those who want no further restraints on the sawmilling industry. A policy which steers such a middle course will not satisfy extremists on either side of the debate, but their intransigence is not proof that a middle ground does not exist.

Even moderate conservationists will not be satisfied if the Government refuses to adopt, more or less as they stand, the recommendations for reserves in South Westland that have been made in the land use study, and the recommendations for reserves in North Westland made in the report of the scientific co-ordinating committee for beech forests. These recommendations may create some problems for the sawmilling industry, but they are problems which can be solved by expedients other than sacrificing areas of forest which have been judged worth preserving on scenic or scientific grounds. The most serious problem is that, if extensive reserves are created, a period will come when all the native forests available for timber production throughout Westland will have been milled, but exotic forests in the area will not be producing timber in sufficient volume to allow sawmilling to continue at the present rate. This will be true, for Westland as a whole, even if native timber from South Westland is made available to meet the more serious shortfall expected in North Westland until the exotic forests mature.

To enable the Coast sawmills to continue working some timber may have to be transported into North Westland from the exotic forests of

Nelson. This will be expensive; but if it is the only way to preserve native forests judged worthy of protecting and to ensure that native production forests on the Coast are logged by acceptable methods, the cost will have to be borne. Future generations will not think kindly of this generation if it allows some of the country's last extensive lowland forests to be milled when there are ways this can be avoided. The Forest Service entered contracts to supply logs to West Coast sawmills before the feeling in favour of preserving the area’s forests became as strong as it is today. Nevertheless, these commitments should not be used to justify actions which affront moderate conservationist opinion when other means can be found to honour the contracts. Even if all the recommendations about reserves are implemented, the West Coast will not become a giant park for the rest of the nation and an area of severe economic depression for those who live in Westland. If the reserve recommendations are implemented, the onus will be on the Government to make a determined effort to provide the Coast with a steadier economic base than one of producing a scarcely processed raw material, timber, from a diminishing resource, native trees. Imaginative decisions about such projects as particle board plants, pulp mills, meat processing plants and, perhaps, coal-fired power stations will sustain employment on the Coast without requiring the felling of native forests which are irreplaceable. The economic future of Westland need not depend on the sawmillers’ being allowed to mill all the native forests on land suitable for replanting in exotic trees.

A policy for the balanced development of the Coast must ensure that the Coast does not go under economically if the logging of native forests is restricted. Such a policy should prevent the future of the forests being presented as a conflict between the livelihood of a region and what many people regard as the greater national good of leaving the forests untouched. Bitterness and resentment are the only possible results if the future of the forests is discussed in these terms.