Remediating erosion

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

Opinion

Like Lara Meyer, I would like to know how Peter Jones believes our region should address eroding land and keeping people employed.

There are a vast number of anti-pine critics out there who haven’t a clue of the scale of erosion or downstream ramifications that have the potential to permanently wipe out this region’s economic future.

Where did Peter Jones — not “we” as he claims — learn that pine trees weren’t an answer to erosion control?

For his information, and others with similar beliefs, if it weren’t for commercial forestry enticed here under various government schemes since 1961, the East Coast communities and our principal resource base would not be around today. It should also be recognised that a lot of people are working in forestry today.

Where did Mr Jones get the idea that eroding farmland could be farmed? If it wasn’t erosion, what initially triggered rural depopulation? The removal of Govt subsidies came later.

On unstable land, how can a farmer subdivide, reticulate power and water, maintain infrastructure and access, keep staff and remain viable? If one was so smart as to be able to farm eroding land, they’d be a millionaire overnight. There is a challenge for you Mr Jones.

Erosion made pastoral farming unsustainable on many large coastal holdings, so they sold.

As has been learned, there needs to be much more resolute harvest monitoring and selective tree variety establishment.

The major change in land use is a new learning curve and comes with a cost. It is our responsibility and obligation to protect our resource base and leave it for future generations to build on.

It is imperative that we urgently reforest heavily eroded areas with appropriate varieties.

Unfortunately procrastination has cost us. We are at the point of seeing uncontrolled erosion equal in area to what it was prior to the introduction of the East Coast Forestry Project in 1992. Added to this demise comes the increase in intensity of adverse weather events, which could have a dramatic effect on efforts and the time frame for erosion control measures.

Tony Harvie