Clarification on logging sought

Press, 4 June 1988, Page 4

Clarification on logging sought

By

OLIVER RIDDELL

in Wellington

Protesters gathered outside the head office of the Forestry Corporation in Wellington yesterday, angry at Forest Corp equivocation about whether it planned to log south of the Cook River in South Westland.

A broad spectrum committee — the Blakeley Committee — is, investigating whether the moratorium on logging south of the Cook River should be lifted or become permanent protection. The Joint Campaign on Native Forests delivered a letter to the chief executive of Forest Corp, Mr Andy Kirkland, asking for clarification. It said Forest Corp representatives on the Blakeley Committee were calling for milling while the Forest Corp head office was saying such milling would be uneconomic. A statement issued in Mr Kirkland’s name said only that it was “unlikely that forests south of the Cook River would have a significant impact” on ForestCorp’s long-term business on ' the West Coast. ForestCorp’s task on the West Coast was to make a viable long-term business from the forest assets subject to negotiation with the Government (which included those south of the Cook River) and ca-

tegorised some time ago as “commercial production forests.” But the Joint Campaign said it had learned from Forest Corp representatives on the West Coast that there were plans to buy virgin lowland forests in South Westland for logging. These- were publiclyowned forests and formed the largest lowland wilderness left in New Zealand. They contained magnificent lowland beech, rimu and kahikatea forests which had been largely cleared elsewhere in New Zealand. They were home to a stunning array of threatened birds — native parrots, kaka, yellowcrowned parakeet, yellowhead, brown kiwi, tui, kereru, brown creeper, bittern, Fiordland crested penguin, fantail, bellbird and rifleman. Yet what was the point, the Joint Campaign asked. Logging had been shown by an economic study commissioned by the Department of Conservation to be hopelessly uneconomic in southern South Westland.

There was known to be a glut of rimu on the West Coast that would persist for many years and so much rimu lay rotting in mill yards or was dumped on the Christchurch market to be used as a cheap substitute for fast-growing radiata pine. The two timber companies with mills in South Westland had said they did not want timber for their mills from southern South Westland, the Joint Campaign said. Forest Corp said the decision of the balance between production and conservation on the Crown’s lands in South Westland was a matter for the Government to resolve. If it were decided to make any forests there available for production and if they were then offered to Forest Corp, that offer would be assessed on its commercial merits at the time. Forest Corp had not undertaken any study of the trade-offs between conservation and development of its own accord, and it was not appropriate that it should.