Whirinaki logging

Forest and Bird, Issue 281, 1 August 1996, Page 3

Whirinaki logging

Glenfield, Auckland

Eastbourne

C.F. Stevens

Russell Bell

Ian Close (May) isn’t the only one who has revisited Whirinaki recently. Ian McDonald, the wonderful photographer, whose pictures grace the pages of To Save A Forest: Whirinaki has also revisited the places where he had previously taken photos. What he found was devastation. This supposedly protected forest has had 360 cubic metres of what DoC calls "dead" trees removed between 1989 and 1995. This take has been for the making of waka for the 1990 celebrations and for new wharenui. Apparently requests for trees came in from all over the country, but aren’t there "dead" totara elsewhere that could be used instead of further decimating the Mangawiri Basin and the Taho Flats of Whirinaki? It would be good for the kaka too, if those dead totara were left

so that the forest can move through its natural ecological cycle. Those of us who were directly involved in the campaign for the protection of Whirinaki are very disappointed to find that what we thought was protected is still open to extraction.

In relation to your article on Whirinaki, I visited Block 10 about two years ago. Block 10 used to contain a basin full of the podocarps that fully deserved the accolades given by David Bellamy and others. That basin has been ruined and rather than recovering is still being degraded by people today. The main road established by the forest service is still open. Old logging roads and tracks off the main road are being used by vehicles. I saw evidence that windfall trees are sawn into sections and taken out, perhaps for firewood. The total Whirinaki forest was absolutely worth saving but the jewels were the two basins where the underlying geological structures allowed ash to accumulate to a great depth. These basins were where the most dense and best podocarps supported their abundant wildlife. They were the prize, but conservationists did not manage to save them intact. One was the Mangawiri Basin logged and planted with pine. The other was the basin in Block 10, selectively logged. Second prize is to wait for the basin in Block 10 to recover. In

time, it will. But treated the way it is at present, it will never recover. Conservationists should insist that the roads into this area are blocked so that fallen trees cannot be removed, so that regenerating podocarps are not driven over by vehicles, so that this area with its unique geological structure is allowed to crawl its way back to its former glory. We missed first prize. Second prize is slipping away.

John Sutton, manager of DoC’s Murupara Field Centre replies: DoC is obliged under the Conservation Act to provide for the taking of plants for traditional Maori purposes and has allowed the removal, at a very low level, of windfallen or deadstanding totara from Whirinaki and other North Island conservation areas since 1987. Currently, with the agreement of the local iwi, the removal of totara from Whirinaki has been suspended pending an independent review taking into account ecological, cultural and legal perspectives. Old logging roads into Block 10 are deliberately not being maintained and are becoming increasingly unpassable for motor vehicles with the passage of time.