Rethink native bush in landscape call

Press, 23 June 1986, Page 30

Rethink native bush in landscape call

Wellington reporter A call to rethink the place of native bush in the landscape has been made by the new Direc-tor-General of Conservation, Mr Ken Piddington. Now that the Government had taken steps to halt logging in State forests, there was an urgent need for discussion about privately owned remnants

and native bush on Maori land, he said. Unless these issues were tackled, particularly in the North Island, the next few years would see the shaving off of bush continue, he told a native forests workshop at Tauranga. The parties involved in these issues were now “talking past each

Mr Piddington said it was now 10 years since the native forest issues had last been discussed by such a representative group — at the Hokitika seminar in 1976 — and there had then been a West Coast emphasis and a State forest emphasis. At Tauranga, discussions were focusing on privately owned forests, where the pressures were now being felt because of short supplies and rising prices. The role of the new Department of Conservation would be to advise on good conservation practices, and on policies that would give individual owners greater freedom

of choice. There was no question of regulatory controls, when most people said they valued the bush and wanted to look after it, he said. There now needed to be a greater priority given to bringing back the bush, rather than just seeking to conserve it. Bringing back some would create a greater sense of harmony between the land and the people. As a national priority, there needed to be a look at the Town and Country Planning legislation, at the possibility of exemptions from rating, and at special techniques for conservation on Maori land, Mr Piddington said.

He said he was not blind to the very strong emotions that surfaced whenever the use of native timber came up. It might be that the evidence made people feel guilty; it might be that not enough thought had been given to those communities whose livelihood had come from logging, he said.