A timber tsunami
Forestry is worth millions to the East Coast, but years of felling have created a threat to those living beneath the logging zones.
They’ve been talking about the ‘‘wall of wood’’ for decades in Gisborne.
But the wall of timber that wreaked havoc as it washed down the district’s hills during bad weather this week was not what they had in mind.
The forestry slash – scrap timber, branches and off-cuts left behind in a felling area – that crashed through houses near Tolaga Bay early on Monday was a malevolent reminder to locals that any economic boon from forestry will not be cost-free.
At least three houses were lost. Stock was lost. Bridges were damaged, paddocks were drowned in mud and debris and kilometres of fences were damaged.
Among the worst affected were the Mitchell family, who were forced to clamber onto their roof as their home began to flood in the early hours of the morning.
The house is a write-off, their possessions are gone.
Timber is big business on the East Coast.
The proverbial wall of wood is forecast to hit the region in the next few years, as trees planted by small-scale growers in the 1990s begin to be felled.
The number of logs going through Gisborne’s Eastland Port is predicted to double to five million tonnes a year by 2024.
Studies have found the Gisborne region is where forestry accounts for the greatest share of regional GDP – more than 5 per cent. One in four households has a member whose job depends on forestry.
But locals know the damage wreaked as a side-effect of forestry, but they’re reluctant to criticise an industry so many across the district rely on.
Dana Mitchell and husband Shaun spent many years as forestry contractors and were aware of the criticism.
‘‘I think people need to know a lot of the wood that came down was old and had been cut down before the council clamped down on that sort of thing,’’ she says.
‘‘In the past few years the council has been really good at coming up and checking skids (log processing areas) before and after we’ve been there to make sure everything was done right.’’
Forestry Minister Shane Jones is less forgiving and says the damage should be a wake-up call for the sector.
‘‘I think the seriousness of the issue is dawning on the industry, but I would say the industry have enjoyed, along with other primary industries, a laissez-faire environment,’’ he said this week.
Given the increasing frequency of weather events, the challenge to forestry is to change its economic model, which has become ‘‘hacking down as many trees in a clearfelling operation as possible’’ and ‘‘hoping and praying’’ land left behind doesn’t slip away, he says.
Gisborne Mayor Meng Foon says that while the forestry sector will support what is expected to be a $10 million clean-up, ratepayers will have to help foot the bill.
District council contractors and the Transport Agency are also expected to be involved and Task Force Green will support clearing farms.
Foon says the council began looking into the issue of slash following ex-tropical Cyclone Cook in April last year, and as of May 1, a new National Environment Standard (NES) means stricter planting and freshwater rules.
Images from Tolaga Bay bring back bad memories for Tasman Bay’s Stephen Tate.
When his Marahau Valley Farm community was hit by ex-cyclone Gita in February, Tate watched in disbelief and fear from his back porch as ‘‘tsunamis of debris’’ surged down the river past his home.
‘‘We were basically one foot on the back porch, one foot heading out the door, not sure whether the next tsunami – and there were about seven of them that came down – would actually take the house out,’’ he says.
‘‘It took out the boulder retaining wall, which is what saved the house from complete annihilation.’’
The biggest tsunami was ‘‘about 100 metres long, about 10 metres wide and about four to five metres deep’’ of solid logs, slash and debris, coming down in a wall of water in what was normally a stream he could side step.
Afterward, the landscape was different.
Some areas are four metres higher, by virtue of the logs and debris that had to be buried and covered in soil and sand. They created a new canal to allow future floods to drain properly.
Separate investigations are underway and three forestry companies are cooperating with the Gisborne District Council to determine how the slash accumulated.
Hikurangi Forest Farms general manager Ian Brown says the focus of the inquiry will be to see whether
I think the seriousness of the issue is dawning on the industry, but I would say the industry have enjoyed, along with other primary industries, a laissez-faire environment.
Forestry Minister Shane Jones
companies, including Hikurangi, have been complying with resource consents.
Both he and PF Olsen regional manager Chris Berry emphasise the significance of the weather, which saw about 55mm of rain falling in just an hour, a quantity Brown describes as ‘‘absolutely incredible’’.
The slash had been lying in situ for four years and survived Cyclone Cook. Its movement with the recent wet weather was unforseen, Brown says.
‘‘We need to cast our minds back a little bit. The reason there are trees on the East Coast is because of Cyclone Bola. For 30 years we’ve protected the downstream farms from these major soil events – the trees are holding it together.’’
He estimates the company has reduced its slash quantities by 30,000 tonnes a year by pulling full trees off-site and disposing of them, rather than leaving offcuts which he says is standard industry practice, to protect the soil.
Forestry slash has also affected communities in the Canterbury area and Nelson region.
In July last year Canterbury farmer Philip King was left to clean up tonnes of forestry debris that washed onto his land during heavy rainfall.
Environment Canterbury opted not to take legal action against Waiake Forestry and PF Olsen as they had been given incorrect resource consent advice.
This year ex-cyclone Gita hit Tasman District, dumping heavy rain and bringing down multiple slips containing silt, debris and forestry slash, some of it from plantation forests.
Tasman district forestry consultant Roger May has long been calling for changes to forestry.
He says there’s nothing in the NES for plantation forestry to limit the clear cutting – harvesting large swaths of forestry – he sees as the main problem in forestry practices.
‘‘I’m coming to the opinion now that it doesn’t really matter what a council’s rules say or what the NES says; the whole idea of clear-cutting fragile steep land will leave us with these sorts of problems time after time.
‘‘The biggest issue in Tolaga is extensive clear cutting. As soon as you clear large areas of steep land, you’ll get accelerated run-off and a whole lot of debris.’’
May says clear cutting is economical for companies but it is important to first work out if the land can sustain any sort of forestry productivity by doing risk analysis, and deciding what species to plant.
‘‘If you can expect some areas to be productive and provide an economic return, then you need to plant more valuable species that can stand more sensitive harvesting.’’
Iwi that have become owners of forestry land as part of Treaty settlements are ‘‘between a rock and hard place’’.
‘‘They’ve been given a pup. They haven’t really had a fair deal from the Crown, because if anyone had done their due diligence they would have realised that continuation of pine plantations on these fragile, steep lands like the East Coast and the Separation Point Granite is the community paying the price of environmental impacts while industry put money in the bank.’’
After Tate’s tsunami, Tasman Forest Management helped clear up. Tate believes that cost more than $100,000 but says they didn’t do anything to address the real issue of logjams caused by debris in stream catchments.
‘‘And so we’re still totally at risk, and this is three months and counting.
‘‘I think they’re hoping it will just go away like it has for the last 50 years, but this time it won’t go away.’’
He says forestry practices are archaic and unsustainable and he recommends selective logging of higher-value trees, and retiring areas that are too steep and erosion-prone.
‘‘There doesn’t seem to be any sense of immediacy. It needs to happen immediately.’’