Forest clear felling in Nelson

Press, 9 March 1984, Page 16

Forest clear felling in Nelson

Sir,—The explanations of the Minister of Forests, Mr Elworthy, and the Nelson assistant conservator of forests for the clear felling of beech and kanuka forest near Kikiwa are unsatisfactory. There is no assurance that similar destruction will not recur. The fact that the clear felling was done merely to tidy the boundaries was not apologised for, in spite of the clear felling of native forests being against the Government’s indigenous forest policy for the area. The Director-General of Forests, Mr A. Kirkland, at the 1974 Forestry Development Conference described native scrub as being indigenous woody vegetation greater than 6m high. This definition has since been adopted by the service for assessing areas of different forest types, but is conveniently ignored by Nelson foresters when they want to clear land for pine plantations. Botanists could justifiably argue that, depending on species and altitude, woody vegetation much lower than 6m cbuld be described as forest —f Yours, etc., B. A. CALDER. March 7, 1984.