Few regions understand the consequences of forestry slash better than Gisborne. Repeated storms, particularly Cyclone Gabrielle, demonstrated how woody debris carried by floodwaters can damage homes, farmland, roads, bridges and rivers. The issue extends well beyond forestry itself. It affects public safety, infrastructure, river health and recreational access across entire catchments.
The Government’s position is understandable. National rules provide consistency, reduce regulatory complexity and avoid a patchwork of different requirements between neighbouring regions. Businesses operating across multiple districts benefit from knowing that one set of standards applies throughout the country. Consistency can also improve certainty for investment and long-term planning.
Local councils, however, deal with the practical consequences when things go wrong. They understand the characteristics of individual catchments, rainfall patterns, erosion-prone slopes and the history of damage within their own districts. What may be an appropriate standard in one region may prove inadequate in another. A steep East Coast catchment behaves very differently from a plantation forest on gentler terrain elsewhere in New Zealand.
This highlights a challenge that extends well beyond forestry. Environmental management often requires a balance between national consistency and local flexibility. National standards establish an important baseline, but local authorities have traditionally been able to respond where particular landscapes or environmental risks justify stronger protections. The question is whether that flexibility should continue where local evidence demonstrates a greater level of risk.
For outdoor recreation, the issue is not simply about forestry operations. Rivers blocked by slash, damaged walking tracks, closed access roads, affected fisheries and degraded river margins all influence how people experience the outdoors. Healthy catchments benefit everyone, including forestry, farming, conservation and recreation.
This is not an argument against forestry, nor against national standards. Forestry remains an important part of many regional economies and consistent regulation has obvious advantages. The issue is whether a single national framework should prevent communities from responding to well-understood local environmental risks where circumstances genuinely differ.
Good environmental management recognises that New Zealand is a country of diverse landscapes. National standards provide consistency, but local knowledge provides context. Durable environmental policy is most likely to succeed when it respects both.
Andi Cocroft is the chairman for Council of Outdoor Recreation Associations of New Zealand (CORANZ). Where this article was sourced.
The Government’s position is understandable. National rules provide consistency, reduce regulatory complexity and avoid a patchwork of different requirements between neighbouring regions. Businesses operating across multiple districts benefit from knowing that one set of standards applies throughout the country. Consistency can also improve certainty for investment and long-term planning.
Local councils, however, deal with the practical consequences when things go wrong. They understand the characteristics of individual catchments, rainfall patterns, erosion-prone slopes and the history of damage within their own districts. What may be an appropriate standard in one region may prove inadequate in another. A steep East Coast catchment behaves very differently from a plantation forest on gentler terrain elsewhere in New Zealand.
This highlights a challenge that extends well beyond forestry. Environmental management often requires a balance between national consistency and local flexibility. National standards establish an important baseline, but local authorities have traditionally been able to respond where particular landscapes or environmental risks justify stronger protections. The question is whether that flexibility should continue where local evidence demonstrates a greater level of risk.
For outdoor recreation, the issue is not simply about forestry operations. Rivers blocked by slash, damaged walking tracks, closed access roads, affected fisheries and degraded river margins all influence how people experience the outdoors. Healthy catchments benefit everyone, including forestry, farming, conservation and recreation.
This is not an argument against forestry, nor against national standards. Forestry remains an important part of many regional economies and consistent regulation has obvious advantages. The issue is whether a single national framework should prevent communities from responding to well-understood local environmental risks where circumstances genuinely differ.
Good environmental management recognises that New Zealand is a country of diverse landscapes. National standards provide consistency, but local knowledge provides context. Durable environmental policy is most likely to succeed when it respects both.
Andi Cocroft is the chairman for Council of Outdoor Recreation Associations of New Zealand (CORANZ). Where this article was sourced.
5 comments:
One of the problems with slash is the shear quantity. From what I understand the logging of steep country if done on a massive scale changes the catchment dramatically, further logging consent could demand a sequential process where say 25% is taken with replanting taking place directly then over the next years the rest is logged the catchment would be better able to cope with episodic events such as cyclones.
What needs to be remember is that the land through subduction etc is rising and the silt generated by this process will not change in aggregate by land management all we can do is alter how and when it comes down to the sea.
Down south forestry slash is contained in vertical north south lines .
Horizontal slash embankment lines enables water to dam and then explode carrying all before it to the sea .
It would also help if cowboy style forestry gangs actually tidied up the slash .
I am sure there are BIG machines who are able to chip all the slash, so it becomes feed for the next generation of trees.
OK, I do realize that this is costing workforce, but lets be clear: the Chinese are buying the wood, so they should also be able to clear the slash.
The last cyclone, took out some 18 bridges because our belovered PM dame Ardern did forbit farmers to burn slash
In a managed forest "SLASH" is green, created over the life of the tree and mostly rotted away before the mature tree is harvested.
The whole trees, sawn at both ends, that we watched on TV damming bridges were either too hard to remove or simply left behind because the didn't meet stringent rules imposed by the buyer or shipping company. Any new rules should demand the removal of all waste above 75mm in diameter.
Forestry has all the features of a bonanza, i.e.sow enormous areas in pine trees, log them at maturity and hope the projected demand
remains, sow the next crop if the market is still viable, repeat until it is no longer economic then abandon the area and leave the locals to cope with depleted, acidic soils, erosion and the accumulated debris of slash. Meanwhile much of the wealth generated has been lost into the pockets of offshore investors who take no responsibility for the consequences. The whole forestry syndrome needs more control at national level. Unintended consequences loom at every stage.
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