Pro-conservation policy announced by Labour

Press, 23 April 1984, Page 4

Pro-conservation policy announced by Labour

Wellington reporter Labour has announced a pro-conservation policy for native forests and National Parks as part of its 1984 General Election Manifesto. The announcement was made by Labour’s spokesman for the environment. Dr M. J. Cullen, at the Easter gathering, at Karamea, of the Royal Foret and Bird Protection Society and the Native Forests Action Council. Native forests and National Parks are the first element of Labour’s policy for the environment.

Labour has promised to implement a strategy to integrate conservation and development so that: • New Zealand moves to a substantial economic base by shifting from the use of non-reneweable to renewable resources.

® Those resources be used to achieve the ends of social justice. ® Trusteeship responsibilities for future generations be recognised. © New Zealand’s remaining endangered species and eco-systems and representative examples of a full range of plants, animals and landscapes, be protected. Dr Cullen said four significant points emerged in the new policies. The first provided a recognition of the need to ensure that the West Coast would be helped to move to a dynamic economic base with growth and jobs secured. That was essential for a sound conservation policy on the West Coast based on a mixture of future protection and sustainable yield management.

The second point was to accelerate the phasing out of logging in State virgin indigenous forests in the North Island, and to extend that to all timber extraction. Timber extraction would be phased out within 12 months, Dr Cullen said. The third point was to recognise the need for an accelerated run-down of extraction from Whirinaki Forest in the central North Island. That would be treated as a matter of urgency, he said. Extraction would stop as soon as was practicable. That would mean it finished within the 12 months prescribed.

The future of the forestry work force and the mill would be guaranteed, and Labour would ensure that the needs of the Maori people for totara would be

recognised. The fourth point was some recognition of the problem of clearance of native timber in private land.

It had proved difficult to be specific on this point, but the issue was recognised and Labour looked forward to cooperation with conservation groups in developing a workable package on the issue, Dr Cullen said.

On the particular issue of the native forest in western Southland owned by the Waitutu Maori Incorporation and about to be milled by a subsidiary of the Feltex group. Labour would make an offer to the incorporation.

“We will use State resources to save the coastal forest, if that is acceptable to the Incorporation,” Dr Cullen said.