Dialogue: Sustainability of logging should be tested by law

By TERRY DUNLEAVY*

If there is one issue for Labour on which the heady idealism of the hustings has been overtaken by the harsh realities of power, it is the debate on the sustainable logging of beech and rimu on the West Coast.

As a pre-election issue, it was as emotionally charged as it was widely misunderstood. The voices of the experienced and the qualified were drowned in a misleading clamour from the red end of the green spectrum.

Also drowned out was the core question: is sustainable management of forests, whether Crown or privately owned, in the best interests of the environment and the New Zealanders who live in it?

There are two interlinked questions: first, what's best for the people; secondly, what's best for the forests? Those who are committed to prosperity through sustainable development believe there is a middle way which can enhance the lives of New Zealanders while still preserving and propagating our flora and fauna.

The key questions which arise from the treatment of Timberlands are not so much those relating to local employment and the sanctity of contracts, but rather those relating to the sustainable management of forests and of the birds and benign wildlife which live in them.

The Timberlands proposals should have been decided through the resource consent process on the basic criteria of sustainability. The Government blocked that avenue of decision when the shareholding minister instructed Timberlands to withdraw its application.

In so doing, it made what has become so far a $120 million rod for its own back, as well as earning the hostility of many people in the area which first gave birth to the Labour Party.

Is it too late for Labour to reconsider reopening the hearing of the original Timberlands application for resource consent? That would return the whole debate to the central issue on which it should hinge: is selective logging of native forests an acceptably sustainable practice?

Is there evidence of sustainability in what Timberlands was proposing? Consider the following assertions from two qualified people.

Associate Professor David Norton, an internationally recognised conservation biologist from Canterbury University's school of forestry, says we should distinguish the unsustainable overcutting of rimu forests in Buller, including Orikaka forest, from the sustainable management of the Okarito and Saltwater forests in south Westland.

The overcutting of Orikaka forest is unacceptable. It has no ecological justification and should be stopped immediately. The sustainable management of south Westland rimu forests at Okarito and Saltwater is, however, quite different.

Okarito and Saltwater forests, which were gazetted for sustainable management in 1984, before the West Coast forest accord, cover an area of only 9500ha. Both forests had been extensively affected by previous unsustainable logging.

Professor Norton has independently audited the ecological consequences of Timberlands' management practices between 1993 and 1998. While any management of a forest has impacts, he could find no evidence that present sustainable management in Okarito and Saltwater was having any significant effect on indigenous biodiversity within these forests.

Single trees were harvested using helicopters, and harvested trees were spread across a range of tree sizes, rather than just the largest trees.

Ian James, of Okarito, a scientist and co-owner of a nature-tourist business, wrote the management plans for rimu sustainable management.

He says that more than 80 per cent of Okarito and Saltwater forests have been already logged, either by helicopter or ground methods. They retain conservation value.

Mr James also says that native-bird abundance has been recorded in an area of the Okarito forest since 1985. In the 18 months since the study area was subject to sustainable logging and predator control, counts of all native birds have increased by 20 per cent over previously recorded years.

Counts of korimako and tui have increased by 28 per cent, toutouwai by 50 per cent and kereru by 115 per cent (based on a sample of more than 2500 individual five-minute counts).

Further, he says, there are about one million rimu trees in the two forests. No more than 1298 are removed each year. Each is direction-felled to minimise damage and lifted from the forest by helicopter. Rimu seedlings are planted where natural regeneration is wanting.

What Professor Norton and Mr James, and others, claim is that New Zealand may be short-changing the future welfare of our native forests and their inhabitants by failing to practise sustainable management.

If they are right, the Government is short-changing New Zealanders, not just West Coasters, by a decision driven more by the excitement of the hustings than rational scientific scrutiny.

Recommitting the issue to resource consent would provide an opportunity for all parties to address the core issue of sustainability, and allow the final decision to be made on those grounds rather than on emotive side issues or passing political fashions.

* Terry Dunleavy is national convener of Bluegreens, who advise the National Party on environmental, cultural and heritage issues.