Conflict seen in land use

Press, 6 November 1984, Page 14

Conflict seen in land use

By

OLIVER RIDDELL

in Wellington Land use conflicts between forestry and pastoral farming are predicted in briefing papers for the Minister of Forests, Mr Wetere. These conflicts were likely to continue in spite of having procedures aimed at avoiding such conflicts. All land bought by the Forest Service of more than lOOha was studied by interdepartmental land use committees. There had been pressure from Federated Farmers to include private representation on these committeeswhich, the papers said, had been resisted by the Forest Service because that would make the committees unwieldly and unworkable. At least two joint venture forestry developments over large areas—in Northland and on the East Coast—had required similar study by land use committees. “In both cases, the efforts of these major ventures to acquire large areas of land for afforestation have attracted strong and vocal opposition from farming interests,” the papers said. Such criticism reflected a

widespread adherence by many fanning interests to a continuance of pastoral land use as of right, with little objective assessment of the real contribution forestry could and had made to rural employment and community life, as well as enhancing and complementing agricultural production. But, the papers said, reafforestation of many upland areas had allowed a return to a more realistic and 'economic pattern of land use.

It had been a consequence revision on land once developed for pasture in overoptimistic land development.