Saunders-Loder, himself a fisherman based in the Nelson Tasman region, said other local fishers often encountered the effects of improper land use.
“It’s not uncommon for fishermen in Tasman Bay or Golden Bay to catch trees. That’s outfall from rivers and clearly a safety hazard that they experience regularly,” he said.
“If you catch a tree or shrubbery or something in your net, it’s got the capabilities of ripping it and impacting upon the safety of the boat. It’s a cost implication of course, in terms of repairing their gear, and it’s a health and safety issue.”
Saunders-Loder stressed that the issue doesn’t only lie with forestry and slash, and that regular land development and river catchment works can send large amounts of sedimentation downstream to coastal environments.
“Our local area has seen the demise of the scallop and oyster fishery as a result of sedimentation throughout Tasman and Golden Bay.”
He highlighted the work being done by volunteer, iwi, and council groups in river catchments and estuaries across the country, but thinks the work is less effective when it’s localised rather than across entire river catchments.
“I don’t think there’s any advantage in filling up our estuaries with native plantings and things of that nature if we haven’t stopped the outfall above it.”
Not keen to point blame, Saunders-Loder wants to see a coordinated and collaborative approach adopted by both central and local government and industries, to improve the health of the nation’s waterways “from the mountains to the sea”, in line with many of the recommendations made in the report.
“I just want to see improvements.”
And while it’s not the nationwide change that Saunders-Loder is hoping for, the beginning of change is occurring in Nelson Tasman.
In February, Nelson City Council created a forestry taskforce to consider the future of the organisation’s plantation forestry with some potential options including adopting mixed-cropping practices to end clearcutting, or permanently re-establishing native forests.
And in Tasman District Council’s harvest of the Kingsland Forest Park, slash is being removed for biofuel or landscape material, and a fixed-head felling machine is being employed to minimise tree breakage and debris deposits. Grass is also being seeded in harvested areas to lessen the risk of erosion.
“Careful management of slash will decrease the potential for debris flows into urban areas,” said Sam Nuske, manager of PF Olsen’s Nelson branch. “We all have our part to play in Aotearoa’s sustainable future.”
He added that PF Olsen is a member of the Eastland Wood Council (EWC), located in Gisborne and Wairoa, and is willing to work with the Gisborne District Council, iwi, community groups, and central government “to be part of the solution going forward”.
However, Nuske disagreed with Saunders-Loder and said that the report on a specific area should not be “taken out of context” and applied to the rest of New Zealand, highlighting Gisborne’s uniquely high soil erosion rate.
EWC chief executive officer Philip Hope said they were working hard to regain the trust and confidence of the Gisborne community and were supportive of many of the report’s recommendations.
“The report outlines a clear series of recommendations and encourages greater collaboration across the board,” he said. “We really welcome this, and we are committed to playing our part in the solution and leading improvements from within the industry.
“It is clear that in some places, we need to change what we do with our land.”
ministerial inquiry into forestry slash to be implemented nationwide.