West Coast forests

Press, 29 July 1977, Page 12

West Coast forests

Sir, — Recently you have published many '.etters concerning Westland forests. Most are against the future cutting of indigenous wood. People have the right to air their views, but most of these letters are from people who are not resident Coasters. It is horrifying to see in these letters that the jobs and lives of ordinary Coasters are of no consequence when one is considering saving the trees. It matters not that the Coaster will have no way of paying his mortgage, keeping his self respect, and maintaining a reasonable life. Why should it affect your correspondents? They are safe in their little world. If they are so sure in their convictions let them buy a house on the Coast, find a job and live in the area, not just pass through or come for an occasional week-end. They will find plenty of scenic reserves and bush they can walk through. — Yours, etc. T. B. COSTELLOE. Greymouth. July 27, 1977.

Sir, —The article by Briar Camboum on West Coast forestry (“The Press,” July 21) is full of inaccuracies. Forest Service figures show 1,585,000 hectares of native forest in Westland, of which 34 per cent is legally accessible for exploitation (not 10 per cent as claimed). It must be an unusual forest which includes “lakes, swamps and arable land.” After admitting that half the area is not beech forest the article then refers only to beech forest and ignores the remainder where most of the timber is. To add to the confusion, the article states: “The sawmillers talk about cutting down all that one-tenth of the beech within their 10 per cent of native forest.” Onetenth of 10 per cent is 1 per cent. As they say, if you use figures in the correct way any demand will disappear into reasonable insignificance.—Yours, etc., S. R. JUNE. July 22, 1977.

Sir, —Briar Cambourn’s article on the beech forests (“The Press,” July 21) is misleading. The beech scheme that the conservationists objected to, was to have “utilised” 291,000 hectares of the West Coast and Southland beech forests. The production area of the West Coast is 216,000 hectares —37 per cent of the region’s 581,000 hectares of native forests. How does this compare with Briar Cambourn’s misinformation? She ciaimed that 1 per cent (10 per cent of 10 per cent) was all that the conservationists were crying wolf about. This is nonsense. One per cent of the region’s forests is 5810 hectares — 210.000 hectares less than the area in dispute. If. as she claims, this 1 per cent represents 10 per cent of the region’s beech forests, these must total only 58,100 hectares. This contradicts her statement that “half the forest area is beech and mixed beech.” Half the forest equals 290,000 hectares. —Yours, etc., COLIN JAMIESON. July 22. 1977.

[Miss Cambourn comments as follows on the letters from S. R. June and Colin Jamieson: “The purpose of the article was to show how much of the controversial West Coast beech cannot be cut down under the present indigenous forest management policy, as revised in 1975. The Forest Service calculates that, under a beech utilisation scheme which does not permit logging in reserves, no more

than 10 per cent of the West Coast beech forests will be logged. At present, without a beech scheme, only 2.6 per cent of all West Coast beech is being worked. If a beech scheme is implemented, and proposals for logging in reserves are accepted unchanged, the permissible beech cut will rise from 10 per cent to 15 per cent. That is, 85 per cent of West Coast beech will still be protected in perpetuity.”]