New Zealand: Logging plan gets bird watchers arguing in court
A bid by the Forest and Bird Protection Society to stop the selective
felling of native trees on a large block of land in the Mangatu
blocks, under way in the Environment Court in Gisborne, is believed to
be a test case for New Zealand. Mangatu Forest was home to kaka,
kakariki, blue duck, bush falcon, North Island weka, North Island
brown kiwi and North Island long tailed bats, Forest and Bird
Protection society lawyer Janette Campbell told the court. The removal
of trees – approximately 10,000 cubic metres of selected species per
year – would result in significant adverse effects on indigenous and
endangered indigenous fauna, she said.
Dr Mark Bellingham, North
Island conservation manager for Forest and Bird Protection Society,
said the consent from Gisborne District Council allowing Forest
Holding Ltd and Mangatu Blocks to selectively clear indigenous timber
within an area of 11,825 hectares at Motu was the largest selective
felling application he had encountered. The society was appealing
against that consent, granted by the council in May. Ms Campbell said
the effects of selective harvesting had not been properly identified.
Prue Kapua, counsel for Mangatu Blocks and Forest Holdings, said
eco-systems were under threat and there was no biodiversity management
occurring within the forest.
The proposal to selectively harvest was
based on the stringent requirements of the Ministry of Agriculture,
Department of Conservation (DoC), and through peer-reviewed ecological
studies. The proposal offered a level of biodiversity that was much
greater than that used on surrounding DoC land. “Given the purported
interests of the appellant, it is difficult to see how they can view
this proposal as anything but positive,” said Ms Kapua. “There is no
recognition by the appellant of the advantages that flow from the
application, particularly in relation to pest management,” she said.
But Ms Campbell said it was preferable to have no pest control
programme rather than to open up 11,000 hectares of indigenous trees
in Mangatu Blocks to selective felling. The present “undesirable”
situation of uncontrolled pests in the Mangatu Forest was preferable
to the introduction of selective logging and the removal of large
specimen trees for an unlimited term, combined with “an ineffective or
partially effective pest management strategy”. Forest and Bird wanted
more precise conditions to describe and constrain the activity, to
ensure mitigation (mainly pest control) had positive effects that
equalled or exceeded adverse impacts. Ms Kapua said Forest and Bird
wanted reserves increased significantly by about 11 percent, the
adjacent Mangatu Blocks farming operations to be discontinued and
farmland to be replanted into bush. Those were significant demands,
well beyond the application, with a view to making the proposal
entirely unviable. Ms Campbell said the application was based around
the Sustainable Forestry Management Plan, developed under the Forests
Act 1949, meaning there was a primary focus on sustainability of the
extraction of wood from the forest. The proposal had been shaped by
considerations “external to the Reserve Management Act (RMA)”. Ms
Campbell criticised council witnesses for relying heavily on consent
conditions requiring the consent holder to undertake a baseline
ecological survey and then use the gathered information to prepare a
biodiversity management strategy. It could be that documents prepared
after the granting of consent left unanswered questions. Ms Kapua said
the Resource Management Act required the recognition and provision of
the relationship of Maori with their ancestral lands. The proposal
involved a joint venture with Maori landowners who were able to
exercise kaitiakitanga and rangatiratanga over their land.
http://www.gisborneherald.co.nz/Default.aspx?s=3&s1=2&id=8987
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