KEY POINTS:
Timberlands West Coast (TWC) says last month's catastrophic gales have cost it a year's worth of logs.
The immediate impact on supply to local sawmills will be minimal as current harvest areas were relatively unscathed, but total volume available in future years will be reduced, said chief executive Phil Melhopt.
TWC did not realise the extent of the disaster until it flew over the Seddonville forest, about 50km north-east of Westport, last week.
The July 30 storm had felled most of the trees in the 570ha plantation, Melhopt said. It would deplete Timberlands' future volume by 150,000-170,000cu m.
The trees were due for harvest from 2011 to 2017. Their loss would cost Timberlands between $750,000 and $1 million, not including potential clean-up costs, Melhopt said.
The Seddonville trees were insured for fire, but not wind damage because the premiums were prohibitively high.
Catastrophic windthrow had cost a further 100ha of trees, totalling about 30,000cu m of timber, in the Nemona and Hochstetter forests in Westland.
Melhopt said the loss of Seddonville Forest was an extreme example of catastrophic windthrow, but TWC had lost significant areas of forest for similar reasons in recent years.
An audit last year revealed TWC had only 150,000cu 1m of timber a year - half the amount previously predicted.
The Government announced the state-owned enterprise could no longer operate as a successful business and would be transferred to Crown Forestry. No date has yet been set for the transfer.
Inangahua Sawmilling last week gave staff notice of pending redundancy, blaming TWC's inability to supply it with quality logs. The mill will reduce from 21 workers to about six and is seeking compensation from TWC for an estimated $1m in losses over the last year.
The West Coast sawmilling industry employs about 450 staff and supports seven sawmills.
- NZPA
