Forestry company on trial for failing to stop contamination of waterways during log harvest

John Turkington's forestry company is facing charges of breaching the RMA in the Environment Court at Whanganui.

Whether a forestry company needed to cause adverse environmental effects to be guilty of failing to comply with its obligations proved a point of contention as a jury trial got under way on Monday.

John Turkington Ltd appeared before Judge David Kirkpatrick in the Environment Court at Whanganui facing five charges laid by Horizons Regional Council relating to two different logging sites.

The company - owned by John Turkington, a former Horizons regional councillor - entered not guilty pleas to each of the charges through defence lawyer Fletcher Pilditch KC as the trial before six men and six women began.

The charges relate to work done while harvesting logs at a site on Rangitatau East Rd, Kai Iwi, between April 2018 and June 2019, and the Rewa Forest, south-east of Hunterville, between December 2018 and June 2019.

It was alleged by Crown prosecutor Ben Vanderkolk the company breached the National Environmental Standards for Plantation Forestry (NES) by failing to stop large volumes of soil sliding down the banks into a waterway after a new track was built, and then failed to comply with an abatement notice to correct the situation at the Kai Iwi site.

At the Rewa Forest, the company breached its consent by using heavy machinery in the Mangatutu Stream and an unnamed tributary, failed to stop debris from the harvesting operation from entering a waterway and conducted earthworks in contravention to the NES, Vanderkolk said.

He told the jury the RMA was there to manage the use of natural resources and to protect them for the needs of future generations.

Waterways had a life-supporting capacity, but could suffer adverse effects from activities within the environment.

“If the land is well and the sea is well, the people will flourish and thrive.”

While in his brief opening address Pilditch told the jury environmental outcomes were important and needed to be carefully considered, Vanderkolk had earlier claimed it did not have to prove the company’s actions or breaches of the conditions caused any environmental harm.

Pilditch said the standards referred to the environmental outcomes, and argued things done badly would cause adverse effects, while things done adequately would cause no adverse effects.

He encouraged the jury to consider the state and quality of the prosecution evidence and look for gaps in proof which would equate to reasonable doubt.

Turkington, who was also initially charged with similar offences, was elected in 2019 to sit on the Horizons Regional Council, but did not stand in last year’s elections.

He had previously told the media his company “strenuously denies” the charges.

“JTL is whole-heartedly committed to operational excellence at all levels,” he said.

JTL was established in 1993 and currently manages in excess of 10,000 hectares of forest across the lower half of the North Island and Southland, markets more than 100 truck-loads of logs per day and produces more than 800,000 tonnes of logs per annum which are both sold to domestic mills and exported, its website says.