Govt, conservation group fall out over forest use

Press, 19 February 1986, Page 22

Govt, conservation group fall out over forest use

By

OLIVER RIDDELL

in Wellington

The Government and the conservation movement have fallen out over the use of West Coast native forests for the Nelson woodchip mill. “Butcher puts boot into beech forests” is how the Joint Campaign on Native Forests has described the decision by the Undersecretary of Forests, Mr Butcher, “to set the woodchip juggernaut rolling through State forests.” Mr Butcher replied that criticism of his actions was designed merely to maintain the momentum of the pressure group because the Government’s commitment to conservation meant that the Joint Campaign did not have much to do these days.

The Joint Campaign said beech forests would be misused for woodchips Instead of furniture. It criticised the Forest Service for sending logging gangs into forests recommended for wildlife protection. Four forest areas on the West Coast recommended for protection in reserves by the Wildlife Service and D.5.1.R., and on which Government decisions had

not yet been made, had been the subject of a preemptive strike by Forest Service logging. Logging gangs had recently demolished forests in two of the proposed reserves, a logging road had been pushed into the third, and in the fourth the timber had been sold to a sawmill company last December, the joint campaign said.

Now Mr Butcher had decided that 30,000 beech trees would go to a Nelson chip mill. This directly contradicted what the Undersecretary for the Environment, Mr Woollaston, had said a year ago when assuring conservationists that it would not be a justifiable use of resources to base a scheme almost entirely on beech production with sawn timber as a minor byproduct.

Mr Butcher said the Government had recently announced a small-scale beech chipping venture and it was this that was being criticised by the Joint Campaign.

The beech sale was for one year only, and was one-sixth of the size of the scheme the conservation movement had agreed was sustainable without

undue environmental damage. He said the Government’s strong implementation of its environmental policies were making the agendas of groups like the Joint Campaign look thin. Such groups relied on the enthusiasm of volunteers to survive and, when a Government tackled the Issues in a positive way, the continued existence of such groups was threatened. They were then forced to manufacture and magnify issues to survive, and that was what was happening here. The Joint Campaign had told the Government that the question of additional West Coast reserves was not really linked tothe announcement of a small, one-year, beech chipping scheme, Mr Butcher said. There were already 100 gazetted reserves in the area, covering 128,439 ha. In most cases what was being discussed was minor extensions to existing reserves. But the Joint Campaign said the Government’s decision to commit West Coast beech forests for woodchipping had “shocked and galvanised” the conservation movement