Treasure in the swamps

Swamp kauri is a unique New Zealand treasure which needs protection. Unfortunately, the law in this area is inadequate and swamp kauri continues to be mined and sold off in a way which damages the environment and wastes the taonga itself.

This is an unusual case where Winston Peters and the Greens are on the same side. Both agree the export trade in swamp kauri needs to stop while a deeper inquiry into the whole matter is undertaken.

Swamp kauri are giant trees which were swallowed up in northern peat swamps about 50,000 years ago, at the end of the last ice age. There they have been completely preserved until now. The timber, needless to say, is both beautiful and highly valuable.

Only the stumps and stump logs can be exported, and there are limits on how much of the stump can be sold. Under a 1949 law, however, swamp kauri can be exported as milled timber or as a finished object such as a carving or a bowl.

Critics say exporters have been getting around the law by superficially carving large slabs of kauri and claiming they are Maori carvings or artworks. Or large chunks of the wood are labelled tabletops and sold overseas.

A major court case resulted in a defeat for the environmentalists. Justice Kit Toogood ruled this month that the export of the swamp kauri could continue. While there had been some concern in previous times around the export trade, the Ministry for Primary Industries had since 2011 tightened its procedures. And Toogood found that swamp kauri was not a fossil that fell under protected objects legislation.

Toogood’s decision, which is now under appeal, is not the end of the matter. As the judge said himself, new legislation would be needed if it was thought desirable to put stricter limits on the exports ‘‘in order to retain the stock of such taonga in New Zealand’’. That is exactly what needs to happen. Swamp kauri is a strictly finite resource, and already too much of it has been mined and sold overseas. This is not, as environmentalists point out, a commodity like coal.

Mining the kauri often destroys precious wetlands, another resource that New Zealand has squandered. ‘‘Swamps’’ were for a long time treated as a useless obstacle to pastoral farming. Only in recent times has their ecological value been recognised.

And forward-looking companies in the Far North have already recognised that the export of swamp kauri – it fetches high prices in China and other places – must stop.

Far North power generator Top Energy has refused to sell swamp kauri on its land near Kaikohe, saying it was too precious to do so. It now seeks permanent protection for the swamp kauri.

This issue need not pose a dilemma between development and ecological protection. In some areas the partly buried forest can still be seen, and would provide a tourist attraction.

Once the swamp kauri has gone, we can never get it back. We long ago stopped milling native forests for this reason. The same argument applies to the mining of swamp kauri.

Swamp kauri is a taonga which New Zealand is squandering.