Alan Taylor: We face a double whammy

LOGS ON THE MOVE: A big slice of Whanganui's roading network will feel the effects when harvesting of the region's 15,000ha forestry estate hits its peak.

LET'S see if we can wade through the obfuscation around the impact of forestry harvesting on our district's roads.

Whanganui Rural Community Board alerted an unsympathetic council to this a decade ago. The council has yet to consider the matter so there is no resolution to date.

The forestry industry appears to be divided in its appreciation of the magnitude of the potential damage to our road network. A series of workshops hosted by the Rural Community Board scoped the timing and magnitude of the likely damage.

The forestry industry representatives present were, understandably, initially sceptical of some of the data presented, but by the end of discussion most agreed that the figures were hard to dispute. More recently, Woody Martin of Arbor Forestry (Wanganui Chronicle, June 9) has backtracked to a position that effectively denies the progress made. No consensus was reached on acceptable options to redress the damage.

The data provided at the workshops are contained in several objective independent reports commissioned by Whanganui District Council. These data clearly indicate that the level of forestry harvest traffic impact (tonnage) over the period from forest planting to the conclusion of harvest is anywhere between 30 and 100 times that of conventional sheep and beef farming and between two and eight times that of dairy farming.

The reports were sourced throughout New Zealand and reflect local variations. Whanganui data is about the middle of the range.

The council has collected rates from forest owners, though those rates are lower than from other land-use categories because forestry land is usually of lower unimproved value (the value of the tree crop does not come into the equation). Even though forest owners may have made lesser use of the roads while the trees were growing, by the end of harvest that use will have magnified by the multiple order mentioned above. In the long run, forestry will contribute to about 67 per cent of road consumption while the rate collected from the forest owners will amount to less than one per cent of the rate take apportioned for road maintenance. Herein lies the imbalance that demands rectification. There is nothing unfair in asking this industry to front up for the majority share of that damage.

Tools exist to mitigate the expected impact of the harvest, although they could interfere in the log market. They may be considered by road authorities but will, no doubt, be difficult to implement or bear.

The success of such tools can reduce the forecast damage, modifying any possible rate increase implemented by the council, which is otherwise faced with funding an extra $20 million spread over the next 30 years of a forestry cycle. And it does not stop there. Such costs recur for each and every further forestry planting/harvest cycle. There will be no intention to ask forestry to contribute more than the extra cost than that activity will generate.

Given that the damage has already begun, and it is late in the piece to rectify the funding imbalance, it is likely that forest owners will still be subsidised by other sectors. Indeed, the rating system currently sees owners of higher-valued land subsidising roads servicing lower-valued properties, and some farming sectors subsidising road use by others. Some of these inequities will persist in any rate revision.

Mr Martin correctly chastises past councils for their lack of foresight, especially since they encouraged forest planting. All production sectors, however, face risk with continual changes in incentives, markets, policies and regulations. Foresters are not immune to those risks. The problem has begun to gain some traction on the back of council staff informing councillors about impending central government cuts to our road funding. We are facing a double whammy with funding cuts coinciding with increased damage.

Forestry certainly contributes to the local economy, but that does not deliver carte blanche to that sector in terms of funding their share of road repair.

There should be no unencumbered right to "wreck" our roads.

-Alan Taylor is standing for election to the Whanganui District Council in October.