Maruia logging plans challenged

Press, 18 February 1980, Page 2

Maruia logging plans challenged

The assertion by thej Minister of Forests (Mr V. S.i Young) that the Forest Ser-j vice has no firm plan for large-scale logging in the Maruia Valley has been challenged by the Native Forests Action Council. The council’s national president (Miss Gwenny Davis) said that large-scale logging began in the Maruia Valley when Mr Young acquiesed last May to pressure from a Nelson-based woodchipping company and granted timber rights of 40,000 cu m a year. “The Minister should fly over the valley and look at what is going on. The forest in the Station Creek catchment looks as if it has been the target area for a bombing exercise,” said Miss Davis., She described as “empty words” Mr Young’s statement that'proposals for parts of the forest, to be logged at some future date, would be open for. ’public comment when th? draff management plan was made public later this year. ■ ‘ “Chipwood logging is already underway, and the Director-General of Forests (Mr G. M. O’Neill) has insisted that reserve boundaries and long-term sawmilling contracts be signed and sealed before the management plan is made public,” she said. “The reserves and timbercutting commitments are the real substance of any management plan and if these have been predetermined it is hard to see the invitation for public submissions as anything other than a charade,” Miss Davis said.

The woodchipping company, which depended on logs from the Maruia area, had recently announced plans to build a fibreboard plant alongside the chipmill. It would be interesting to know whether the erection of this plant by private interests would make continued logging in the Lewis Pass region a virtual certainty, regardless of the wishes of the public, said Miss Davis.

In reply, Mr Young said that he was mystified what the Native .Forests Action

Council was complaining about when it was well aware that some limited logging trials had taken place in the Maruia area. The sawlogs had to be used to supply sawmillers in the Inanga : hua area and the chipwood, which was . a by-product. of these logging trials, had to be sent to Nelson Pine Forests,. Ltd,, under a shortterm, contract that ran until 1982. There had been no secret about the trials, and the Action Council had been fully informed and was aware of these matters, Mr Yoiing said. '■ ; “At present, these trials do not constitute-firm .plans for large-scale logging in the area,” he. said.

The supply-to Nelson Pine Forests, Ltd, announced last year . , was an, emergency measure to save the company from closing and thus maintain jobs and revenue for the Nelson area.

The completion of longterm supply contracts with West Coast sawmillers was a necessary prerequisite to the publication of draft management plans. The Government had already given a commitment to maintain a volume of saw-logs which will keep the West Coast sawmilling industry viable, said,Mr Young. “These contracts are fully in line with the Government’s announced policy for West Coast forest resources and the Action Council is well aware that Government policy is for a reduction in the cut by 25 per cent,” he said. The Government was unaware of any firm proposal to build a fibreboard factory in Nelson and no approach had been made by any company for log supplies for such a venture.

“It seems the Action Council is attempting to make something from nothing. I repeat that there are no firm plans for large-scale logging of the Maruia area,” he said.

Once the draft management plans had been published, public comment and submissions would be welcomed and taken into consideration.