Dialogue: It's not just a matter of 'saving the trees'

Terry Dunleavy* says the Government is deliberately ignoring the role of sustainability in its rush to "conserve" the country's native forests.

The last rites in Parliament this week of the Government's shameful abrogation of the fourth Labour Government's 1986 West Coast forests accord beg a question which is vital to the future not just of the West Coast but of the whole of New Zealand.

That question is: does the Government have any understanding, let alone appreciation, of the role of sustainability in the socio-economic development of our country? Obviously not in forestry.

And that lack of understanding of sustainability is shared by those misty-eyed city-dwellers who fell for Labour's pre-election fairytale about "saving our native trees."

The Government's purpose was made quite clear in July by the Minister of Conservation, Sandra Lee, when she referred to "the Government's policy to end all logging of Crown-managed native forests on the West Coast."

The minister made that statement when announcing the appointment of an independent panel to review and make recommendations to the Government about the future management of Timberlands West Coast's areas of native forest.

This signalled that the Government itself didn't know, and was presumably unable or unwilling to accept advice from its own agencies, such as the Department of Conservation, and, by implication, certainly not from its own state-owned enterprise Timberlands West Coast. What was surprising was that among the five members appointed to the panel, there was not one forester.

Or was it so surprising, given that the West Coast (Forests) Accord Bill is in two parts: the first ending the accord and cancelling all remaining obligations; and the second enabling the status of the forests in question to be changed to conservation areas, reserves, additions to national parks or unallocated crown land?

One hopes that the panel is not simply to become a rubber stamp for a change of status already in the minds of the responsible ministers.

What happens to the magnificent indigenous forests on the West Coast should concern all of us. And we city-dwellers have a special obligation to ensure that we understand the importance of those forests to us and to those who will come after us.

The first thing to understand is that it's not just a matter of "saving the trees." It's also about saving the birds and the native flora for which the forests are a natural home. It's also about the people of the West Coast, the guardians of a special area, who deserve more economic certainty than a one-off grant of $120 million and vague promises of a future in tourism.

People who have taken the trouble to study the facts know that to gazette forests such as Okarito and Saltwater to the status of either conservation areas, reserves, or additions to national parks is, on the demonstrable evidence of DoC management of such areas, no guarantee that they will retain their present restored value as native forests or their security as homes for native flora and fauna.

Experienced and highly reputable foresters, the vast majority of whom supported the Timberlands proposals for sustainable logging, decry what they term the "lock-up myth" which holds that indigenous forests are best left entirely to their own natural devices.

That might have been true in times before the introduction of pests alien to the environment, which now require intensive management for the protection of native trees and wildlife, including birds.

The so-called conservation estate managed by DoC, which consists of about one third of all land in New Zealand, for all its occasional successes in species protection in small areas is, in respect of large forest areas, in "lock-up" mode. This probably has more to do with unwillingness by present and past Governments to allocate sufficient resources to the department for pest eradication, but it is a fact.

Conservation does not, and cannot in the present system, equate with sustainability. Sustainability has been defined for forestry students at Canterbury University by their teacher, Dr Graham Whyte, as: "Maintaining the supply of as many benefits, goods and services at as high a joint level of each as can be reasonably supplied in perpetuity, without permanent loss of current resource management options."

Dr Whyte also defines roles for all forests as moderating water quantity and quality; maintaining and enhancing soil fertility; limiting atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide; maintaining biotic diversity; providing homes for people; providing supports for people; and sustaining resources and ecosystems.

Given that the Timberlands forests were only 7 per cent of all indigenous forests in the West Coast, the Timberlands plans for selective logging would have met Dr Whyte's criteria while guaranteeing sustainability of those forests and continuing employment for West Coasters.

All New Zealanders now need to ask themselves whether they understand sustainability, and whether they can grasp the fact that it is essential for the survival of the human species in perpetuity. Forests are an integral part of the natural environment essential for human survival. There are a variety of roles to be played by the different forests that have the ability to flourish in New Zealand.

The "lock-up" philosophy which underpins what we call "conservation" does not offer a guarantee of that survival. What's needed is sustainability.

We need to grasp the essential truth that, in order to sustain human life, we must sustain - not merely conserve but sustain - and where possible enhance, the dynamic miracle that is our natural environment.

Evidence suggests that this needs a change of mind and heart by the Government. It cannot continue to use our forests as political tools to dupe the unwary. It cannot continue to use ministerial intervention, as Pete Hodgson did in the Timberlands case, to prevent proper use of resource management hearings to consider any proposals of environmental significance.

* Terry Dunleavy is the national convener of the Bluegreens, which advises the National Party on environmental and heritage issues.