East Cape wharf could boost logging industry

THE CLOSURE OF SH35 BETWEEN OPOTIKI AND GISBORNE due to flooding late last year, again highlighted the need for an alternative transport route for the East Coast.

“As climate change makes events like flooding more common, it’s clearer than ever that this region needs the security as well as economic benefits of a deep-water wharf,” says Dave Fermah whose company Terrafermah is working with local landowners and hapu, Potikirua Trust, to build the wharf at Potikirua, between Cape Runaway and Hicks Bay.

As well as being a boon to the East Coast’s logging industry and cutting carbon emissions, the multi-purpose wharf can provide alternative ferry or boat services to guarantee access to markets and essential services for some of New Zealand’s more remote communities, he says.

The project received a setback when the Government’s funding agency, Crown Infrastructure Partners (CIP), declined funding through its ‘Shovel Ready’ Projects fund last year.

Instead, CIP has given a competing project $2million initial funding to progress its proposal to establish a barging operation for logs in Te Araroa.

Mr Fermah describes the decision as “extremely shortsighted”: “We are disappointed for the region that CIP has chosen to progress a very limited and specialised barging operation. It provides a worse outcome for the logging industry and offers none of the wider economic, climate or transport benefits that a multipurpose port provides.”

In addition, the proposed ferry service from the wharf can provide alternative transport options as well as backup during emergencies, he says.

“Waka Kotahi NZTA tell us they have budgeted $300m over the next 30 years to maintain this stretch of road. It is geologically unstable and our proposal takes all logging trucks off it,” Mr Fermah adds.

Potikirua Trust Chairman and local Coast Community Board Deputy Chair, Allen Waenga, adds, “Government planted our lands in pine forests in 1970, and in 1972 recognised we needed a new wharf and commissioned studies. Fifty years later they still haven’t built what was recommended by the then-Ministry of Works and our people are still paying the price, with logging trucks wrecking the roads and Māori landowners getting no returns on our lands from forest owners due to high transport costs.”

Mr Waenga says his group is continuing to develop the wharf project and believes that its strong business case and wider community development opportunities make it an attractive investment for private or public partners.

“Upgrading transport links is the key to our region prospering,” he says. “It is time the Crown fulfilled the obligations they promised in 1972. Get us the reports so we can get on with building our wharf.”