Whirinaki ‘win’ for conservationists

Press, 24 May 1985, Page 3

Whirinaki ‘win’ for conservationists

The public controversy over milling of native timbers in the Whirinaki area reached its height in the late 19705. Confrontations occurred between conservationists keen to end milling and the villagers at Minginui whose sawmill depended on Whirinaki wood to keep the village in being.

Mr Wetere's announcement stopping all logging of the forest signals final victory for the conservationists, whose pressure over the years has led to a significant reduction in the felling of native trees. One of the members of the new advisory committee will be Professor John Morton, of Auckland, who is expected to be elected as the new national president of the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society next month.

His appointment shows that the conservationists

have won on all the issues that arose as part of Whirinaki.

Conservationists believe Whirinaki to be a naturally regenerating forest. The Forest Service considered it was the first forest there after the eruption of Mount Taupo in A.D.118 and that it was changing from a softwood into a hardwood forest.

The Forest Service was keen to continue some milling to supply Minginui mill and also practise its planting techniques in a forest that it saw as changing anyway; the conservatives wanted the forest left alone.

The people of Minginui wanted milling to continue to retain their community. The conservationists said other timber could be brought in, but the Forest Service disagreed because it considered there was no surplus supply in the Bay of Plenty for the mill.

This argument has been won by the conservationists, although surplus supplies are more readily available in 1985 than they would have been in 1978.

The predominantly Maori community at Minginui considered Whirinaki’s native forests their tribal and cultural heritage, to which they had a right for employment and to retain their identity. The conservationists believed this identity would remain even if milling of native trees were discontinued.

Now the local Maori community has now come to accept that it can retain its identity using exotic logs brought in rather than native logs from its own forest.

All three arguments bedevilled the Whirinaki issue and Mr Wetere’s announcement means all three have been won by the conservationists.