Forestry contractor shuts up shop, ‘devastated’

Robert Stubbs had to shut down his company Stubbs Contractors Ltd last week, after 23 years in business. He is pictured here in 2017. At its p eak Stubbs Contractors employed 70 people, but with the market downturn it had dropped to three harvest crews and about 25 workers. File picture by Paul Rickard

A Gisborne forestry contracting business owner is “devastated” about having to pull the pin on his 23-year-old company.

Robert Stubbs owns Stubbs Contractors Ltd and forestry has been his life. Before owning the business, he spent 10 years working for others in the sector.

But after much angst and thinking, last week he shut up shop, and on Monday he was sitting on a forest skid site below Waipura/Gray’s Hill overseeing the removal of his harvest contracting gear. It will be sold on the second-hand market and he did not expect it would fetch much.

“The market is flooded with equipment that’s not selling,” he said.

“The market is in a downturn situation, for, I don’t know, probably the third or fourth time since the beginning of Covid.”

This was a situation a number of years in the making, he said — his costs had gone up, margins to make money were slim and as export log prices had kept dropping, forest owners dropped harvesting rates and pulled back on how many trees they wanted harvesting.

At its peak Stubbs Contractors employed up to 70 people. That has now dropped to three harvest crews and about 25 people. Stubbs said the business had been going backwards for some time and it was forest contractors taking the hit.

“I just never seem to be able to get the break or opportunity to turn it around and improve that situation.”

Asked why contractors did not ask for more sustainable rates from forest owners, Stubbs said that just never happened.

“Rates are up and down all the time with them. Market conditions seem to constantly come into play and those market conditions or prices, fluctuations and low prices tend to roll down the hill and be pushed on to the contractors to compensate for it . . . whether it’s reduced production at times or slight drop in logging rates.”

Forest workers earned good money, and Stubbs said that would no longer be injected into the community. An average take-home pay would be $1500 in the hand a week, sometimes $2000.

He felt some of the people would get other work “but a lot of them won’t”.

And what about Stubbs himself? “I’m unemployed as well and got to find a job.”

The pain and heartache was palpable.

Stubbs said another large Gisborne contractor closed down last week and “as we speak other crews have been cut back to 80 percent work, asked to take a reduction in rates, and woodlot crews are being laid off”.

There had to be a solution to the forestry issue.

“It is wrecking lives,” he said.

He knew forestry companies had to be profitable too, but it was time to take stock of what was happening.

“It’s time that we all looked from the outside to see whether we can make it a better, more robust industry that looks after us a whole lot better. The industry needs to look after the sector better.

“We are the third biggest export contributor and we employ a lot of people. Somehow the industry has to find a slightly different model of marketing and selling wood overseas and a mix of domestic sawn wood — just having that diversity to the market.

“Yep, oh boy, it’s a constant boom and bust.” — RNZ