Forestry firm reviews work
The biggest forestry business in the top of the South Island has committed $500,000 towards research on sedimentation, as the business prepares to launch community consultation on contested forestry practices.
Nelson Forests Ltd has also announced a school leaver programme, providing apprenticeships at the Kaituna Sawmill near Blenheim next year.
The developments follow studies this year that linked damaging sediment in local river systems to run-off from pine plantations.
‘‘We realise that there is a high level of interest in forestry’s role in sedimentation and that our community is looking to us to proactively address this issue,’’ said Lees Seymour, managing director of Nelson Forest’s management company, Nelson Management Ltd.
The company has commissioned Landcare Research and Cawthron Institute to start the research on its 60,000 hectares of productive forest in Marlborough, Nelson and Tasman district. It would add to work the company had already undertaken, including new methods to manage run-off from earthworks during rain events to trap sediment, Seymour explained.
Independent researchers had meanwhile been contracted to begin talks next month with two local communities, to gather views on forestry practices.
‘‘If you believe in climate change, maybe we’re going to have more and more extreme rain events,’’ Seymour said. ‘‘We need to be talking with our communities about how do we build resilience into our community to protect people’s structures, to protect people’s properties.’’
Forestry operators came under fire from some residents in Tasman district this year after pine trees and slash (scrap timber left behind after harvesting) were among the debris that swept around homes when heavy rain hit the region during ex cyclone Gita, causing multiple slips.
There were renewed calls to cease logging on some of the region’s steep hillsides, and to change the practice of clearfelling; harvesting all trees in a plantation forest at once.
Nelson Forests had ‘‘minimised’’ slash that remains after harvesting, but more needed to be done to build the market for turning slash into a fuel product, he suggested.
The company was considering the future of about 1000 ha of its steep land which had been classified as ‘‘red zone’’ under new national environmental standards for plantation forestry.