Foresters want debate on report

Press, 31 May 1985, Page 3

Foresters want debate on report

The Institute of Foresters wants public examination of the report on environmental administration. It rejects administrative separation of land and forest management into preservation and development categories. Such separation is ‘'a technical and economic nonsense.’’ and “contrary to the World Conservation Strategy,” says the institute. In a message to the Government from a conference in Hobart last week, when the institute met the Australian Institute of Forestry, the institute condemned some of the reported proposals. “We hold no brief for the Forest Service, but we argue for the management and administration of forested land within a single, multi-functional agency,” it said. The institute seeks public debate before the Government makes decisions on what the working group on environmental administration has recommended.

The Prime Minister, Mr Lange, the Minister of Finance, Mr Douglas, and the Minister of Forests and the Environment, Mr Wetere, have been sent copies of the institute’s reaction to the apparent lack of public consideration of the report before a decision is made in June. The statement was released yesterday by the institute’s president, Mr W. P. Studholme, of Darfield. “We believe that the report proposes the administrative separation of land

and forest management functions into those which are preservation and de-velopment-oriented.” says the statement. “We reject the simplistic view that management and administration should be separated into these components. Such separatism is a technical and economic nonsense. “It is absolutely contrary to the principles of the World Conservation Strategy, the draft New Zealand Conservation strategy, and your own preelection policies, all of which promote the integration, not the separation, of conservation and development. “The working group, established following the extremely unrepresentative Environmental Forum, contained no person with recent professional experience or qualification in forest land management,” says the statement. “Had it done so, we believe it would not have reached conclusions which betray such an absolute misunderstanding of the nature of forest and natural land management." Noting the Forest Service’s “deserved international reputation in many aspects of forest land management and its indigenous forest estate,” the statement says: “The vote of no-confid-ence which the report presages would seriously reduce the national and international standing and effectiveness of an agency which has a major and growing international reputation.”

The institute is concerned that there does not appear to be any opportunity for public input, nor comment from disciplines such as forestry, which appear to have been deliberately excluded. “This exclusion is apparently at odds with your policies for consultation and consensus. So far the discussion has been orchestrated and conducted largely among those already committed to a preservation philosophy.” Recalling that it had supported the proposals in 1982 to merge the Forest Service and Lands and Survey Department, the institute believes in long-term returns from integrated management, more able to reflect the complete range of society’s needs. “This alternative needs to be re-examined," says the institute. “The information available on the present proposals and the means by which they have been formulated indicate that the consideration of economic implications of the simplistic division of New Zealand’s lands of the Crown into those to be preserved and those to be commercially used has been completely inadequate. “There is no indication that the millions of dollars worth of economic activity now generated within natural lands and forests is being considered or assessed in present deliberations upon environmental administration,” the institute said. Further reports, page 14