Esk Valley Orchardist Malcolm Davie showing the destruction of his property, his anger with forestry and how to recover. Video / Mike Scott
James Treadwell is tired of the forestry industry’s head being on the chopping block.
The New Zealand Institute of Forestry president has all but dismissed the findings of a ministerial inquiry into land use, which largely painted the industry in a poor light.
Production forestry should be stoppedin extreme erosion zones around Wairoa and Gisborne, the inquiry concluded.
“We are not a third-world country. We heard from experts that the situation is perilous and the time to act is now. In their estimation we have five to 10 years to turn this environmental disaster around,” the report reads.
“The panel found that the forest industry has lost its social licence in Tairāwhiti due to a culture of poor practices — facilitated by the Gisborne District Council’s capitulation to the permissiveness of the regulatory regime — and its under-resourced monitoring and compliance,” the report reads.
“Together, these factors have caused environmental damage, particularly to land and waterways, and they have put the health and safety of people and their environment at risk.”
Treadwell doesn’t pretend forestry practices are perfect or that slash didn’t contribute to the devastation caused by Cyclone Gabrielle.
Slips on hills in forest country near Devil's Elbow on State Highway 2. Photo / Warren Buckland
But he said slash made up just 10 per cent of the woody debris that destroyed infrastructure during February’s flood.
“All along the way we’ve said this is not just a slash issue and we need to have a proper discussion and that discussion has not been had,” Treadwell told Hawke’s Bay Today.
“I thought the inquiry would go into that, but we’re not having a proper conversation and - believe it or not - this will happen again and more people will die.”
That discussion needs to be around land use and where trees are planted and where people can safely live, he says.
The ministerial inquiry centred on Tairāwhiti and Wairoa which Treadwell, a professional forester who regularly works in that region, said had among the most unstable soils in the world.
“Slash is a small part of this problem. It’s 10 per cent,” said Treadwell.
“We’re talking about whole trees that have fallen off the hillside when the hill fell down and that will happen again and it will happen with natives, it will happen with poplars, it will happen with anything because the hills are so erodible.”
The 10 per cent figure Treadwell mentions came from a Hawke’s Bay Regional Council report into the species of woody debris that swept through the region during Cyclone Gabrielle, which was published in March.
And yet, to Treadwell’s mind, the impression persists that slash or, as he put it, “wood that’s come off a logging site and had a saw go through it” was the root of the problem.
“I’ve come at this from a scientific point of view, I’ve come at it from an historical point of view, I’ve come at it as a local who’s upset every time I drive through Esk Valley and up the East Coast and I don’t know how I change that narrative,” Treadwell said.
The ministerial inquiry didn’t help, he said, because “some people in that inquiry obviously went in with some biases already in place”.
That panel was made up of Hekia Parata, Matt McCloy and Dave Brash.
“You had two people with absolutely no forestry knowledge and one person [McCloy] who is a forest engineer. Now, a forest engineer is trained to build roads in the forest, not to grow trees and not to harvest trees,” said Treadwell.
Those are points Treadwell said he made to then-Minister of Forestry Stuart Nash, when the panel was appointed.
Debris surged down the Esk River during Cyclone Gabrielle. Photo / NZME
There is a belief that planting native trees could mitigate the collapse of hillsides, but Treadwell said that wasn’t true of Hawke’s Bay and Tairāwhiti.
Then there is the cost and the problem of pests.
Treadwell recently planted 40 hectares of natives near Wairoa, of which just over a hectare are left. Goats were the issue, despite him shooting 900 in one day.
“I can plant radiata for, let’s say, $1000 a hectare. If I do natives, I’m up to $10,000 to $15,000 a hectare, so that was an expensive loss,” he said.
Gorse is actually the best means of stabilising hillsides, he added, citing the Remutaka Range between Wellington and Wairarapa.
“I don’t think I’m going to be able to spray the hills in gorse, but it does keep the goats and pigs and everything else out.”
Unfortunately, weather events in this region, such as Cyclone Gabrielle, will see hillsides collapse and stands of trees washed away.
Treadwell says more has to be done to mitigate the impact upon people.
“In good conscience, we can’t let Esk Valley happen again.”
