Environmental, forestry issues need maturity

Press, 19 September 1985, Page 41

Environmental, forestry issues need maturity

By OLIVER RIDDELL in Wellington A call for a greater degree of maturity and sophistication on environmental and forestry issues has come from the Undersecretary of Forests, Mr David Butcher.

He was addressing a public meeting in Tauranga on the prospects for restructured administration of the environment. “The last 10 years have seen some monumental confrontations on environmental issues, as we have passed through our adolescence,- ” Mr Butcher said. The debate on environmental administration in

the last six months or so had been waged vigorously by those in favour of radical reorganisation. There had been a considerable degree of polarisation during the debate, and on a number of occasions the integrity of department staff had been attacked, he said. This had to stop, and the sooner .the better.

He said that there was no point in adversarial confrontation. Talking to each other was a better way for parties to resolve disagreements and misunderstandings than posturing or a long-distance slanging match in the news media.

To have a new era of environmental management, it was necessary to deal with the issues with a degree of maturity and sophistication, Mr Butcher said.

Time and again it had been suggested that the Forest Service was entirely produdction orientated, and had regard only for the needs of the timber industry.

“I do not believe the evidence supports that view,” he said. The Forest Service had a substantial production role, of course, but it also had a significant production role.