Swamp kauri export ruling

AUCKLAND: New Zealand’s highest court has ruled that exporting slabs of swamp kauri as ‘‘tabletops’’ or swamp kauri logs as ‘‘totem or temple poles’’ is illegal under the Forests Act.

The decision marks an important victory for the Northland Environmental Protection Society, which has challenged the Ministry for Primary Industries, Customs Service and Ministry for Culture and Heritage through the courts to close down the export trade in unimproved slabs and logs of the rare and lucrative resource.

‘‘A slab of swamp kauri labelled a tabletop would not fit’’ the definition of manufactured product in the Act, the judges concluded.

‘‘The use as a table could not be discerned from the product itself. Further, a tabletop is not a product in its own right and thus is not ready to be installed in a larger structure.’’

While the five judges of the Supreme Court did not agree that pieces of swamp kauri were covered by the Protected Objects Act, the ruling means that unless a swamp kauri exporter turns such a slab into a real piece of furniture, the loophole under which such timber has been exported is now closed.

The Forests Act defines a manufactured product for export as needing to be sent over the wharves ‘‘without the need for further machining or other modification’’.

‘‘The product must be ready to be used or installed in the form which it is to be exported,’’ the judgement released yesterday said.

The judges also accepted that a component of a product could not have been intended to mean any piece of a product. — BusinessDesk