Forestry’s new setback model
Pushing forestry back from the edges of the Marlborough Sounds will cost forest owners millions of dollars, with industry saying it could be seen as land confiscation.
Coastal scientists and industry players know forestry contributes to the runoff mud suffocating the seabed in the Sounds. But they agree forestry is not the only culprit and should not bear the brunt of the blame.
Industry spokesman Vern Harris said the Marlborough District Council should be congratulated on its scientific modelling of causes and remedies for chronic sedimentation plaguing the Sounds.
Forestry is one of four separately branded portfolio-based branches to be set up in the Ministry for Primary Industries in 2018, under the coalition’s Shane Jones. Fisheries, biosecurity and food safety are the others.
Harris had written to Shane Jones outlining the co-operative approach being used in Marlborough and to offer expertise going forward, he said.
‘‘There’s a long way between discussion and reality but you have to start somewhere,’’ he said. ‘‘There are very few MPI staff across the top of the south, and even less are forestry-qualified. We have a lot of qualified staff with a lot of experience, and we can help.’’
Harris and his team worked with forestry researchers and the council earlier this year taking a close look at forestry practices in the Sounds. They looked at replant setback areas in riparian zones and around the coast as an option for preventing fine sediment being carried to coastal waters.
Harris said the setback option could be workable, and the council recognised it needed an agreed industry-supported approach to ensure it wasn’t seen as a confiscation of land rights. He said the modelling being done to determine possible setback was at an early stage and anything emerging from that needed to be coherent and clear to the industry.
Scientists working on modelling, including the council’s Dr Steve Urlich and Dr Tim Payne for the New Zealand Forest Research Institute, agreed that increasing setbacks would impact on jobs.
Their reports showed coastal setbacks of 30 metres, 100m and 200m would reduce the harvestable area, log volume and increase the cost of harvesting, all contributing to a decrease in revenue from forestry, up to 16 per cent for a 200m setback. Employment opportunities in forestry would also be reduced. However, increased setbacks would boost carbon sequestration and avoid sedimentation (1 per cent and 6 per cent respectively) for a 200m setback.