WOODCHIPPING: A SCOURGE ON THE LANDSCAPE

Forest and Bird, Issue 250, 1 November 1988, Page 2

WOODCHIPPING: A SCOURGE ON

THE LANDSCAPE

By

Kevin Smith,

Society West Coast Conservation Officer,

who argues for a native woodchip export ban.

n recent years significant progress has been made in New Zealand forest conservation. Yet, the whine of the chainsaw and the menacing growl of heavily laden logging trucks are still common sounds in our rainforests. With awesome efficiency, the woodchip industry is rapidly eliminating large tracts of South Island beech forest and Central North Island tawa forest. New Zealand is a willing party in an international trade in rainforest destruction. We are contributing to the greatest ecological disaster since the last Ice Age. Worldwide, rainforest destruction poses a threat to civilisation ranking alongside nuclear war and destruction of the ozone layer. It is also a major contributory cause to global warming. This will result in environmental disruption that may make a considerable portion of our planet uninhabitable to all but the simplest of life forms. Rainforests are one of the world’s most complex ecosystems. They support an incredible array of life forms. The impact on the world’s biota from their destruction is almost beyond comprehension. Thirty hectares of rainforest are destroyed every minute and as a consequence several species of plants and animals become extinct each day. This rate of species extinction has not occurred since the mass extinctions that marked the end of the Dinosaur’s reign on earth.

The companies couldn’t give a hoot for sustained yield management and logged areas are not replanted to regenerate the forest.

Rainforests Under Siege Rainforest destruction is most extensive in the tropical rainforests of indebted, third world countries. Woodchipping and log exporting are truly international scourges. However, the temperate rainforests of relatively affluent countries such as Australia and New Zealand are also under siege. In both rich and poor countries, logging companies annihilate whole forests as they Strive to feed the insatiable appetites of the Japanese and Korean pulp and paper industry. Throughout the world, conservationists and public environmental agencies have raged impotently against the industry. Governments have generally avoided their environmental responsibilities and have allowed the development of a one-way traffic from the world’s rainforests to the pulpmills of the East. International agreements exist to stop the trade in endangered species; but the international woodchip industry, which endangers more species than any other activity, operates with impunity. The horrendous consequences of woodchipping have been well documented. The Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society believes that bold initiatives now need to be

taken to end this international scourge. We will be asking the Government to take a stand, just like it did in declaring New Zealand nuclear-free, and ban the export of indigenous woodchips and unprocessed indigenous timbers. This could be achieved through a simple amendment to the Customs Act. Forest and Bird and the Maruia Society have embarked on a nationwide campaign to achieve this ban. Unless the Government acts quickly, the cancer of woodchipping will continue to spread through New Zealand's remaining unprotected native forests. Taxpayer Subsidies Woodchipping is the major threat to New Zealand's rainforests. The industry did not arrive here until the late 1960s and since then it has been plagued with financial difficulties. It only managed to gain a foothold here through generous direct and indirect taxpayer subsidies, including cheap supplies of State Forest logs. Indigenous woodchip exports have increased dramatically in recent times. Export tonnages have risen sharply since 1984. Most of the increase comes from the clearfelling of native forest on private land. Chipmills using indigenous wood operate at Richmond near Nelson, Awarua near Invercargill, and at Kinleith in the Central North Island. The Nelson mill is the biggest and has mainly drawn on beech forest from private land near Nelson. From time to time it has been kept going with cheap supplies of beech timber from West Coast State forests. It also scavenges far afield for private forests from Marlborough, Murchison and from the Maruia, Inangahua and Grey Valleys of the West Coast.

The Southland mill has been a blot on the Southland landscape since 1981. It takes kamahi, rata and beech from forests in the Catlins, Hokonuis and throughout Western Southland. These two mills operate in conjunction with large Japanese corporations that take all the chips. Elders-NZ Forest Products operate the third mill as part of their Kinleith complex. It consumes tawa logs from the clearfelling of native forests on the Mamaku

Plateau and from forest remnants on farmland in the Bay of Plenty and King Country. The chip is processed on-site and used in producing certain types of paper. Forest and Bird is currently holding talks with the company to explore ways of accelerating the changeover from tawa to plantation-grown eucalypts as a hardwood pulp source. Both the South Island woodchip export mills suffered setbacks recently. The Labour Government's decision to protect a network of reserves and wildlife corridors in North Westland and their decision earlier this year to protect the virgin forests of Western Southland’s Dean and Rowallan forests have reduced the potential woodchip resources. Sustained-yield requirements for the remaining State forest indigenous production forests in both areas have further

Minister of Customs Margaret Shields: a giant step for conservation if she amends the Customs Act to ban woodchip exports.

reduced the opportunities for wholesale woodchipping A further setback for the Nelson chipmill occurred when Waimea County, formerly its major source of logs, introduced controls on forest clearance on private land in response to an initiative of the Maruia Society. The chipmill owners, Nelson Pine Forests Ltd, challenged these controls at the Planning Tribunal and in the High Court but fortunately lost both times. Opportunistic Industry Woodchipping is an opportunistic industry however. Nelson Pine Forests’ logging trucks now roar over into Marlborough and down to the West Coast's Inangahua valley. NPF has also made a bid for the sole rights to the Forestry Corporation's West Coast beech forest estate. They are waiting ominously in the wings, if proposals to use these forests for high quality sawn timber production founder. The Southland mill is owned by Wood Export Tokanui Ltd, a combination of New Zealand and Japanese interests. Having been denied further State resources, it continues to plunder native forests on Maori and private iand in Southland and SouthEast Otago. The export of whole indigenous logs made a brief, financially disastrous appearance on the local scene in 1987. Log exporter, Tai Swiss Ltd, used a big helicopter to remove logs off back country steeplands

in Hawkes Bay and also cleared forest in Marlborough. Heavy losses on a 15,000tonne log shipment to Taiwan forced the company out of business. Elsewhere in the Pacific, log exporting has been big business, stripping tropical islands bare of their lush forest cover. Woodchipping is also a highly unstable industry as the world price for woodchip fluctuates wildly. The Nelson chipmill’s operation has been marginal from the start. In 1979, the company threatened to close its entire operation but was bailed out by the Government with a supply of virtually free logs from State forests in the Maruia Valley. Earlier this year it slashed its staff of 28 by a third to boost its profitability. Indigenous woodchipping is one of the worst types of industry. It is highly mechanised and creates few jobs. As the industry is marginally economic, the taxpayer has received little back for the huge sums of taxpayers’ dollars shelled out to keep the industry afloat. Woodchipping earns export

dollars but these are largely cancelled out by its reliance on expensive imported heavy machinery. To the Japanese the destruction of New Zealand's rainforests is a lucrative business. They supply the logging machinery, logging trucks, the cargo ship and do all the downstream processing in Japan. The woodchip export industry fails New Zealand in its ability to create jobs or wealth. It also fails as a sustainable land use. Much of the land from which the forest is cleared is marginal for forestry or agriculture because of its poor fertility or steepness. After logging, large tracts are abandoned in a seriously degraded condition. The companies couldn't give a hoot for sustained yield management and logged areas are not replanted to regenerate the forest. Some sites are burnt off and planted in pines. On others, farmers struggle to grow grass amidst the remains of the wrecked forest but are often defeated by the soil’s high fertility requirements and rapid reversion. Increased farm productivity is not the incentive for these farmers; it’s the ability to convert native forest into a one-off cash crop.

Incredibly Wasteful Use Woodchipping is also an incredibly wasteful use of a limited timber resource. When a forest is felled, some of the better quality logs are put aside for sawmilling, but between 80 to 90 percent is simply pulverised into 5 centimetre woodchips. Undoubtedly, a much greater proportion of the logs could be sawn for their timber. In this way, woodchipping destroys sustainable jobs. The pell-mell destruction of the beech resource eliminates options for a sustainable beech timber industry using a highly selective, small-scale harvesting approach.

(Newman’s) directors and shareholders seem oblivious to the permanent damage their chipmill is wrecking on the scenic landscapes tourists come to see.

Today, travellers on the highways and country roads within a wide radius around the chipmills are confronted by the largescale devastation of this country’s natural heritage. Across the Mamaku Plateau, around the Catlins and throughout the Nel-

son hinterland, it’s as if some mysterious holocaust has blasted away the original forests. Ironically many tourists travelling these routes will be transported by Newmans buses or campervans. Nelson Pine Forests Ltd is part-owned by Newmans. The company directors and shareholders seem oblivious to the permanent damage their chipmill is wrecking on the scenic landscapes tourists come to see. Nelson conservationists are not so blind. Maruia Society and Forest and Bird members recently attempted to prevent a woodchip vessel from entering Nelson harbour. A blockade of small craft stretched across the harbour entrance, similar to those used elsewhere in the country against that other international floating obscenity, nuclear warships. The Nelson blockade didn’t succeed in stopping the ship, but successfully focussed national attention on the woodchip trade.

An export ban (of native woodchips) is the single most important step the Government could take to end the destruction of this country’s rainforests.

Vigorous protests have also been mounted by many Southlanders against their chipmill. Not since the days of the Manapouri campaign has Southland witnessed as much public controversy on an environmental issue. The Southland mill menaces remnant native forests throughout the province and threatens the chances of establishing the proposed Catlins Coastal Park. The Catlins is the only place on the whole eastern coast of the South Island where unspoilt rainforests still meet the sea-coast. Catchment authorities have invariably been either unwilling or lacking in statutory powers to curb the excesses of woodchipping. Steepland forests that have conserved soil and water resources for millenia have been stripped away overnight. The downstream impacts of this clearance will continue well into the future. Horrendous for Wildlife The consequences for wildlife conservation from all this woodchipping are horrendous. Many of the lowland forests being destroyed harbour an abundance of native wildlife. In the South Island, the beech forests may be home to threatened birds such as the yellowhead, kakariki and kaka. More common forest birds such as rifleman, robin, brown creeper and bellbird may be: especially numerous. On the Mamaku Plateau over the last ten years, 1000 hectares of prime native forest containing New Zealand's largest surviving population of kokako has been woodchipped, burnt and converted to pines.

Earlier this year the forest corridor linking the 100-strong East Mamaku kokako population with the 200-strong West Mamaku population was flattened by Elders-NZ Forest Products to supply tawa to the Kinleith pulp mill. Forest and Bird want to see the corridor replanted and the remaining forest protected. Since 1979, both kaka and kakariki have become locally extinct on the Mamaku Plateau — victims of continued woodchipping. Research in Southland beech forests has shown that woodchipping eliminates more sensitive species such as the threatened yellowhead, kaka and kakariki. Even decades old regenerated beech forest is of no value to these birds which are confined to unlogged native forest. Populations of most other native birds declined drastically after logging; only introduced birds like sparrows, redpolls and finches increased. Logging transformed the diverse forest ecosystem into just another commonplace modified landscape devoid of any special wildlife. New Zealand can no longer ignore the woodchipping crisis and the sell-out of our natural heritage. For woodchipping, Rogernomics has been a two-edged sword. The industry has lost many of the direct subsidies that have propped it up over the years. On the other hand, the scene is set fora surge in native log and woodchip exports. Hard-pressed landowners are being forced to liquidate their forest assets for an immediate, short-lived, cash injection. At the same time, the profitability of native woodchipping is improving with the lowering of inflation and interest rates and the falling value of the kiwi dollar. Woodchipping is an area of market economy failure. An uncontrolled trade in native woodchips benefits a few individuals and companies but incurs massive environmental costs on the wider community. Moreover, as Cyclone Bola powerfully demonstrated, widespread forest clearance can result in frighteningly high economic costs not previously imagined. Virtually No Controls The Government must move quickly to end the scourge of woodchipping in New Zealand's native forests. At present there are

virtually no controls on the industry's operations on private land. While Elders-NZ Forest Products are talking with Forest and Bird about ways to end the chipping of tawa, the owners of the Nelson and Invercargill mills remain committed to largescale woodchipping of native forests. In its 1984 election manifesto, Labour promised to develop effective mechanisms for the protection of native forest on private land. Little has been achieved to date and the Government is left standing on the sideline while the woodchippers rampage through the private forest estate. Conservationists will continue to battle woodchipping through district planning schemes, and we will press for planning reforms that make better provision for environmental protection. But progress in these areas is slow and uncertain. This approach is unlikely to result in any significant challenge to the supremacy of the native woodchip industry in the forseeable future. Yet, society must be able to control an industry that causes such extensive and permanent environmental degradation. The most effective measure to control the industry would be a ban on the export of indigenous woodchips and unprocessed indigenous timber. The simplicity and transparency of an export ban, and its immediate effectiveness and ready enforceability make it clearly superior to other forms of control. It is not the only answer, and other avenues need to be explored to end the chipping of tawa as the tawa chips are processed locally. The ban would bring to an end the current woodchipping of South Island forests. This may result in the loss of a relatively small number of unsustainable jobs in Nelson and Southland. In both areas rapidly expanding exotic wood resources offer a sound prospect for future forestry employment. Native forest woodchipping has a deplorable record of environmental destruction in New Zealand and elsewhere in the world. The costs of allowing it to continue on its destructive path are too high. An export ban is the single most important step the Government could take to end the destruction of this country's rainforests.