Chief Human Rights Commissioner urges accountability for forestry companies in Tairāwhiti

Chief human rights commissioner Paul Hunt visited Tairāwhiti to listen to and learn from communities. Picture by Liam Clayton

A whole raft of human rights issues are tied up with forestry companies and slash, says Chief Human Rights Commissioner Paul Hunt, after witnessing the impact of weather events on the Tairāwhiti region.

He was here on Wednesday, along with the Rongomau Taketake Indigenous Rights Governance partner Claire Charters from Te Kāhui Tika Tangata Human Rights Commission.

They travelled up State Highway 35 to meet and speak with people in weather-affected communities.

Commission staff engaged with Gisborne District Council representatives and residents group Mana Taiao Tairāwhiti before the visit to Te Araroa to listen to the community there. Yesterday they visited Ūawa Tolaga Bay where they learned more about what has happened since Cyclone Gabrielle.

“Human rights are understood as placing obligations on local and central government but it’s not well known that corporations have human rights responsibilities,” Mr Hunt said.

“The United Nations and New Zealand Government have affirmed that they do have human rights responsibilities.

“There should be an accountability arrangement for corporations and that’s not happening in Aotearoa.

“Taking away from this trip, I want to talk to the corporations and discuss these issues.

“I recognise the corporations are providing employment, but some people are losing their jobs which is alarming.”

Corporations were granted a social licence to operate and that licence had conditions such as respecting basic human rights.

“Presently there is a lot of evidence piled up on the beaches that corporations ‘responsibility to human rights are not being fully discharged.”

It was complicated as many corporations had overseas owners.

“I don’t want to demonise them, but I want to talk to them about their human rights responsibilities. I get the impression some are taking their human rights responsibilities seriously, and some are not, which is not fair on those who are taking it seriously,” Mr Hunt said.

He said the slash is ruining the local environment and stopping mana whenua from accessing traditional food resources which is important to mana whenua.

“The slash is changing the way they practice tikanga and access their traditional food sources which flows into issues of wellbeing,” Mr Hunt said.

“I would like a consistent approach across the corporations so that they are respecting basic human rights, indigenous rights, environmental rights and we have to have a discussion about that. I think that discussion around these things in Aotearoa is underdeveloped.

“Corporations have human rights responsibilities but are not clear what they are and we don’t have an effective mechanism to hold them to account,” he said.

Along with seeing the impacts of forestry, Mr Hunt said he learned a lot from the communities they visited.

“I saw how communities rallied together and are strong, but I got the impression they are tired.

“I heard strongly that communities have the solutions and they have to be listened to by local and central government. They have the knowledge, the history, relationships and insight.”

He said the weather events should not be seen as individual events, but rather contextualised as part of the era of climate change.

“These communities they visited are isolated, first by colonisation and by centralisation and the centralisation has sort of removed resources from them.”

Mr Hunt said there have been good intentions from the Government, such as swiftly getting funding to marae and iwi, as well as construction of temporary bridges and roads and there had been some clean up of forestry slash, but not enough.

They heard concerns about the Ministerial Inquiry into Land Use.

“I did hear good things about it but I picked up a worry that momentum is being dissipated. Time passes, there’s a general election and all sorts of political dramas. There’s a worry that this long-term problem which requires all-of-government solutions, is losing momentum."

Rongomau Taketake, Claire Charters said a lot of what they heard from people was about lack of services — “anything from having access to an ambulance, to getting access to kura,” she said.

The lack of services for the Te Araroa township was one of the main topics discussed.

“Seeing the devastation from the cyclones and other weather events, it was heartbreaking to see that any further rain ‘re-devastates’ the land. It’s impossible to actually fix and needs new road infrastructure — the roads are broken.”

She could see the slips and how vulnerable the land is while travelling north on state-highway 35.

“One aspect that was really powerful for me, was seeing how the devastation of Gabrielle and other events has aggravated all the legacy damage and impacts of colonisation, such as loss of land and the impacts of urbanisation,” she said.

Now that they have heard from the communities, they will be advocating for them.