New Zealand: Economy limits harms to forests
BWT Contractor Blair Taylor, who does silviculture work, said the
Nelson Forests’ layoffs would put pressure on the rest of the
industry. “It’s starting to quieten down,” he said. “People are not
looking to spend money on silviculture and just leaving the trees.
“In
the future, it will mean they will not make as much money, because the
crops will not be worth as much.” Wakefield Hotel owner Julie Bennett
said everyone in the community was concerned by the forestry layoffs
because they would have an effect across the board on other
businesses. Nelson Forests has been affected by the slowdown because
it is a big exporter, but production is continuing at its Kaituna
sawmill and other forestry and timber companies are continuing work.
Logs are exported through Port Nelson. Chief commercial officer Parke
Pittar said the port had not yet seen much drop-off because a rush of
ships before Christmas had cleared the logs stacked at the port, and
this month was traditionally slow following the Christmas shutdown.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/nelsonmail/4826661a6007.html
The slow down in forestry is not saving any forests that are in danger of harm. The forests in question are pine plantations, pinus radiata is an introduced species. They are not native forests. They are grown to be cut down and are definitely not old growth forest.
There is actually some concern in NZ that pine plantations have a detrimental effect on the water table, and in parts of the country wildling pines are an environmental pest and cost a great deal to eradicate.
Reply: Thanks for adding more info on this… It’s always true that the more information we have, the better our understanding of how to address what’s going on. And conversely if we jump to conclusions and take action without enough information we do more harm than good! And thanks to your information / reminder I trust it will get people thinking about all the non-native forest plantations throughout the world. We must begin to plan for an as non-violent solution / transition back to a Native landscape as possible?