National park in Paparoas not Govt policy — plan

Press, 21 January 1982, Page 1

National park in Paparoas not Govt policy — plan

P.A. and staff reporters

A national park in the Paparoa Range is unnecessary and falls outside the Goverment’s policy for the West Coast, according to the Forest Service.

The service yesterday made public its draft management plan for the 382,000 hectares of State forest in Buller. The plan says that if the area remains State forest it can provide production and employment and protection for large areas. A multiplicity of uses is proposed for the next 10 years for the forest land, which includes three-quar-ters of the district.

Provision is made for picnicking, tramping, gold-pros-pecting, trail-bike riding, pony trekking, car rallying, hunting, canoeing, scientific and historic preservation, timber production, mining, grazing, honey production, opossum-fur and venison recovery, wild animal capture, and other uses.

Strong objections to the plan have already been made by the Sawmillers’ Federation and conservationists, in spite of the service’s saying that the plan is aimed at a compromise between conservation and local employment objectives. The federation’s president, Mr R. J. Perham, said that proposals in the plan - could jeopardise the work of five local sawmills. While the

plan includes a Government undertaking to maintain a viable sawmilling industry in the region, it also suggested smaller allocations of timber for mills.

Present supply commitments would end in 1986 and then a reduced quantity would be available until exotic plantations were, ready for harvesting by about 2005. The effects of this would be far-reaching because forestry was a major industry on the West Coast. Less timber would mean under-used mill machinery and no incentive for mills to invest in the area.

The president of the Native Forests Action Council, Miss G. Davis, and the deputy president of the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society, Dr A. Edmonds, said in a joint statement that the logging plans were “quite excessive.”

The native trees in the region zoned for felling would, if laid end to end, stretch from New Zealand to India and back again. The plan also reintroduced the concept of burning off native forest and required the logging of 100 per cent of

the podocarp trees from vast areas of forest. The plan could be likened to the illfated West Coast beech scheme of the early 19705.

Miss Davis and Dr Edmonds said that the Government should withdraw the plan and develop a whole new management strategy for the Buller forests.

“This could be based on a national park, adequate reserves, and a small-scale sustained yield of native timber from the balance of the forests, oriented toward local manufacture of furniture, handicrafts, and similar products,” they said. The main grounds for objection were that the plan did not set aside adequate areas of lowland forest for reserves and prescribed logging in the heart of the proposed Paparoa national park. The plan also made no effort to reduce the logging of native forest to a sustainable level. Instead, local sawmills would mill the remaining native forest for another 30 years and would then switch to exotic timber.

The draft management plan, the last of three for West Coast State forest land, covers the southern part of North-West Nelson '-' State Forest Park, the main river catchments of the Heaphy, Karamea. Mohikinui. Orikaka and the Nile, and most of the steep land in the Buller County, including a north-western portion of the Paparoa Range. . To minimise the conflict in the many uses, the forests are classified largely according to natural constraints of land form, soil, and type of forest.

Primarily to prevent acceleration of natural erosion, and the flooding of lowlands. 70 per cent of ‘ State forest land is classified as protection forest steepland, where the native forest is retained in its pristine state. A further 17 per cent will be preserved as an amenity forest, or gazetted ecological and amenity areas.. A balance of 13 per cent of the total State forest area is ranked as suitable primarily for the production of timber. Of the production forest. 68 per cent or 34,687 hectares is classed as having long term potential, but is at present economically inaccessible. It is proposed to harvest podocarp and beech saw logs from 12,850 hectares (3 per cent of the region) with subsequent management for a future yield of indigenous sawlogs and afforest in exotic plantations (2720 ha less than 1 per cent of the region)

to sustain forestry’s existing level of contribution to the regional economy.-

To illustrate these classes of land and modifications proposed, a brochure will be produced within .a- month. People who wish to comment on the draft plan should write to the Conservator of Forests in Hokitika no later than April 30. Only 51.200 hectares of the total forest area of 382.000 hectares is potentially suitable for production.

The remainder, excluded from logging, is mostly protection forest (70 per cent) to guard against erosion and lowland flooding, or reserves and amenity zones (17 per cent). This" includes eight ecological areas recommended by the Scientific Coordinating Committee and an officials committee. The 51,200 hectares earmarked for present or future logging are divided as follows:

• Existing exotic plantations: 500 ha (0.1 per cent of total forest).

• Proposed exotic plantations: 2700 ha (0.8 per cent). • Indigenous use (suitable for logging now): 12,900 ha (3.4 per cent). Long-term indigenous management (which means it has long-term potential but is at present economically inaccessible): 34.700 ha (9.’1 per cent).

The controversial Fox catchment area on the western flank of the Paparoas, which conservationists saymust not on any account be touched, lies within a "indigenous utilisation zone."

Much of the north eastern Paparoas — the Ohikanui,

Ohikati and Blackwater catchments — is to be left untouched as wilderness zone.

The' Forest Service says that without the western forests "it is not possible under existing conditions to supplylevels of wood assumed to be required for the maintenance of industry." It admits that rapidly rising wood prices or the advent of a market for beech chipwood could bring about a "reappraisal of the situation" by making it economically feasible to mill areas of timber normally regarded as inaccessible.

At present 24.700 cubic metres of wood are cut each year but a significant reduction. possibly down to about the 16,000 cubic metre mark, is likely when sales are renegotiated in 1986:

The unknown factor in the future of the forests is what can or will be done with the large volume of beech. Buller forests are either pure beech, podocarp beech or podocarp-hardwood and all are characterised by a high proportion of low’ quality chipwood material. No industry exists to process this so only sawlogs, and until recently only podocarp sawings, were extracted. Traditionally sawmillers have been loath to use beech because it is more difficult to saw and season and podocarps were readily available. The Forest Service says a chicken and egg situation exists. It says beech has a great potential for contributing to the region's economy but that the local industry cannot afford to make use of this potential and has little incentive to do so.

"Production from northern West Coast beech forests is severely limited by the absence of an assured market for chipwood." the plan says. "It is a major objective to find a viable integrated industry to utilise the beech chipwood resource." But until such an industrygets under way, or native wood prices rise sharply, or other drastic changes occur in the economy of the coast, the service believes its management plan offers the best and fairest deal. The conservationists’ statement said that four-fifths of the exotic plantations needed - had not yet been planted and it was proposed to burn off areas of native forests for the purpose. Exotics would not be precluded but should be planted on land outside native forests, especially encouraging farm wood lots. The societies said misleading percentage figures of the native forest areas to be affected by logging had been produced by the service. The statement said the figures totally ignored the distinction between upland and lowland forest.

Only the lowland native forests had a rich diversity of plants and wildlife, the upland forests being biologically impoverished by comparison.

“Many of the species we want to’ protect can only be saved in the long term bysetting aside large reserves of their lowland forest habitat." the statement said. It was also the lowland forests which were the most accessible and attractive to family recreation, especially around Punakaiki.