Call for locals to control Coast

Press, 29 December 1988, Page 2

Call for locals to control Coast

By SUZANNE KEEN A grave risk exists of the West Coast’s natural resources being “hocked off” to a multi-national or foreign interest, says the chairman of the West Coast United Council, Mrs Margaret Moir. She is concerned about the future of the West Coast production forests and the opportunities for the people who work and play in them.

The United Council has begun negotiations with the Government on how to save the forests for the benefit of all New Zealanders.

Mrs Moir said the council believed the best solution was to vest the forest lands of the Crown in the West Coast Regional Council and to assign the cutting rights and management to a West Coast forestry enterprise with a majority West Coaster shareholding.

“Unless the people best able to manage those forests sensitively are given the job, New Zealand could lose them,” she said.

Mrs Moir said that decisions on the use of the production forests vitally affected the people of the West Coast. For too long people living outside the region had been making important decisions on what may or may not be d' ithr the regio-

jone within ie region, without any accountability to those most affected.

“I hope the Government is serious about giving that .power to the people of the West Coast. I believe they have a right to have an effective say in their own destiny.”