Minister urged to intervene in logging

Press, 21 November 1987, Page 3

Minister urged to intervene in logging

A Planning Tribunal decision curbing uncontrolled felling of native forest on private land in the Nelson region is already being used as a precedent by environmentalists. The Native Forests Action Council, whose successful challenge of the Waimea County Council’s District Scheme led to the tribunal hearing, wrote to the Minister of Conservation, Ms Clark, this week, asking her to intervene and stop the felling of native beech on private land in the Clutha County area.

The action council’s director, Mr Guy Salmon, said that under section 56 of the Town and Country Planning Act, a Minister could institute a change in a local authority’s district scheme. “We have asked the Minister to do just that in the Clutha County where the Invercargill woodchip mill is wreaking havoc on

a forest based on private land,” Mr Salmon said. “Unless the Minister acts, nothiifg can be done until 1991 when the scheme next comes up for review and by that time a very large proportion of forest will have been destroyed.”

To add weight to N.F.A.C.’s submission, a local resident has been on a hunger strike since last Saturday in protest at the wholesale logging.

The action council’s Clutha initiative is an example of how the Planning Tribunal decision — released only a week ago by Judge Treadwell — has national implications.

In the decision, which is only interim pending further discussion between the parties on the definition of native forests, the Tribunal upheld the Waimea County’s decision to make the felling of native forests on private land in its Rural C zone, a

conditional use. An appeal under section 49 of the Town and Country Planning Act was lodged by Nelson Pine Forest, Ltd, owners of the Richmond chip mill, to have the felling and clearing reinstated as a predominant use. The change to the District Scheme was prompted by submissions by N.F.A.C. in 1984 and was adopted by the council last year.