THE PRESS MONDAY, MARCH 1, 1982. South Westland’s forests

Press, 1 March 1982, Page 18

THE PRESS MONDAY, MARCH 1, 1982. South Westland’s forests

The Government’s decision last year to add the South Okarito and Waikukupa State Forests to the Westland National Park, and to impose a moratorium on. the milling of all native forests south of . the Cook River, appeared ‘ to have laid to rest the controversy about the future of the.forests of South Westland.

Most conservationists were reasonablysatisfied with .the decision. A true “mountain-to-the-sea” national park should be of greater advantage to New Zealand in the ‘ long run than the short-term advantages that would have , been gained from partly or completely felling the forest protected by the decision. The Government, in South Westland and elsewhere, should continue to .preserve as much as possible of the country’s remaining native forests, though it need not pursue this goal with complete indifference towards the communities that rely on milling native timber.

The fear remains strong in the timber milling towns of South Westland that the Government’s decision to “lock away” the South' Okarito and Waikukupa forests will mean the death of their communities. People in these communities, and the West Coast United Council, want the Government to “renegotiate” or reverse the decision about the two forests. Conservationists, for their part, have noted that' the decision has yet to be formally implemented, and the comments by the Minister of Forests, Mr Elworthy, about the Pureora forest in the North Island, after he had visited the township of Pureora,' must have raised some alarm among conservationists about the firmness of the Government’s commitment to its decision about the South Westland forests. In Whataroa last week, Mr Elworthy made it clear that the decision would not be reversed. Although many consumers would like the timber, from a strictly legal point of view, the Government has no commitment to the sawmilling industry in South Westland beyond the existing, supply contracts, which expire at the end of this decade. Mr Elworthy told the meeting in Whataroa, however, that the Government was considering several options to keep the mills going until exotic trees become available from recent plantings in Westland. Other Ministers have spoken at other times about alternatives for Westland; dairying, minerals, and tourism are among them. There is an understandable scepticism on the West Coast about this talk of alternatives, but

the fact is that South Westland has little choice but to find such alternatives or to treat them as additional sources of local wealth. Ev.enif there were no pressure to preserve native forests, the alternatives should be welcome in Westland to ensure future jobs and development.

The milling industry for some years has had expectations that have been too high and could not be sustained by the dwindling- forests of South Westland. Milling could not have continued at the same level 'of past years as the forests accessible to the mills were cut out. To sustain a timber industry, even of the reduced size that it is to,day, it was necessary to plant exotics much sooner than such planting was in fact begun.

The timber industry of Westland has also shown itself to. be conservative, in the north of the province at least, in its reluctance to adapt to the more abundant and, in some instances, still expendable beech timber resource. Almost nowhere on. the West Coast has any determined effort been made to transform the timber industry into a smaller-scale, more specialised industry. More extensive and more careful processing of native timbers for the specialised uses for which they are most suitable might well have been pursued when the removal of price control on native timbers opened up the prospect of higher prices for native timbers prepared for special uses.

The hope still seems strong in the South Westland timber towns that selection logging in the forests to be included in the Westland. National Park would have allowed the timber industry to carry on as before. This looks like a vain hope. Conservationists’ reluctance to see the forests damaged, as they are, by selection logging, helped persuade the Government not to extend the use of this technique. Even, if this had not happened, the annual, sustained yield of timber using this technique would not have been sufficient to keep the industry going at the present level. Giving the industry free rein in all the remaining forests which are economically accessible to towns like Hari Hari and Whataroa would not have helped. The concept of sustained cropping of native forests still survives — in pockets in South Westland, in the management plan of the Forest Service for the Buller forests and in parts of the remnant forests of the North Island. This does not provide any magical solution to South Westland’s difficulties. ■