Editorial: Clearing up native trees best solution

Green Party's Eugenie Sage. Photo / NZ Herald

Labour and Greens should see the upside of decision to allow log recovery on needy West Coast

The history of the West Coast is one of boom and bust. Such fluctuations in fortune are the lot of local economies based on extractive industries. To escape a similar fate, major political parties tend to avoid policy extremes, especially, in the lead-up to an election. Occasionally, however, it happens, as with the Government's plan to log native timber blown over by Cyclone Ita. This, said the Green Party's Eugenie Sage, was more boom-and-bust thinking that would not create long-term jobs. She was right; the exploitation of the timber will end in 2019. But that hardly meant this was an opportunity that should have been let pass. Suggesting just that saddled Labour and the Greens with what was widely viewed as an extreme policy.

The Government ensured some good will come from nature's devastation when, under urgency, it passed the West Coast Windblown Timber (Conservation Lands) Act. This was necessary because the Conservation Act makes no provision for timber recovery in such a circumstance. Notably, Labour's West Coast MP Damien O'Connor and Te Tai Tonga MP Rino Tirakatene supported the legislation, going against their party's stand. They could not convince other Labour MPs that the interests of the West Coast should take precedence over support for the position taken by the Greens.

Their stand was right. Conservationists have some qualms about the logging of the high-value trees, especially in terms of the removal of vital nutrients from the forest ecosystem. But it is surely possible to take logs without seriously disturbing the biomass. Indeed, removing some of the trees will probably aid regeneration. Additionally, the legislation contains enough safeguards to suggest appropriate care will be taken.

Authorisations for logging will be issued only where the Conservation Department's Director-General is satisfied the proposed method is safe, and that environmental impacts are minimised. There will be no recovery of timber from World Heritage areas, national parks and ecological areas. Care has also been taken to ensure the timber is not frittered away as firewood or woodchips. The beech, rimu, totara and matai trees will have to be used for finished products. Finally, all royalties from the sale of the logs will go to the department for reinvestment in conservation work.

Cyclone Ita felled an estimated 20,000ha of forest and caused significant damage to a further 200,000ha. In all probability, only a small part of that will be removed. Nonetheless, hundreds of jobs will be created both in the logging and the processing of the timber. That, and the safeguards, mean the public good associated with exploitation far outweighs any concerns about the impact of the logging.

Nor is the protection of native forest being compromised. That Labour and the Greens declined to see as much suggested they were concerned about more than just the felled timber. Several references to the conservation battles that culminated in a halt to the logging of these forests confirmed as much. Probably, they worried that the exploitation of the timber without dire consequence being the cue for the resumption of selective logging.

There is no suggestion of that. Felled timber is being removed from low-grade conservation land for a limited period. Nothing more. This is surely a practical response to an event dictated by nature, and one that benefits one of the country's least prosperous regions.