Council seeks order against Forestry Association president and company

Wednesday, 14 August 2024

Enforcement orders sought against forestry company and directors

Gisborne District Council is seeking an enforcement order that would require a forestry company and its directors to remove slash and debris from steep land near Tolaga Bay

One of the directors is Matthew Wakelin, president of the NZ Forest Owner’s Association

The company opposes the council’s application against the directors, saying there was ‘no factual or legal basis’ for it

The president of the NZ Forest Owner’s Association is one of several company directors subject to action being taken by Gisborne District Council in a bid to halt forest slash and debris washing out of a large forest near Tolaga Bay.

Matthew Wakelin and three other directors of Aratu Forests Ltd are opposing an enforcement order application by the council, which is seeking controls in the company’s 9000 hectare Te Marunga Forest, about 12km west of Tolaga Bay.

After Cyclone Gabrielle, council officers found that the woody debris had travelled downstream and destroyed Hikuwai No.1 Bridge on State Highway 35.

The forest is steep hill country classed as being highly prone to erosion.

The company, previously known as Hikurangi Forest Farms Ltd, was fined $379,000 in 2020 for offending in 2018 that resulted in flooding and damage caused by forest debris in the Tolaga Bay area.

Slash and woody debris on Tolaga Bay has become a common sight

Aratu is one of the largest forestry companies in the region, managing around 27,000 hectares of radiata pine plantation on 35,000 hectares of freehold, forest rights and leasehold land.

Also listed as respondents in the application, alongside Wakelin and the company, were directors Cassandra Crowley, Maui Tangohau and Ellanese Mytton.

Log debris in the river channel upstream of the bridge on the Mangatokerau River in 2018. The river flows from the Te Marunga forest.

In its application for the orders, the council said harvesting practices at Te Marunga Forest had been poor and included leaving large amounts of slash, felled trees/logs and windthrow on unstable skid sites and slopes in a position where it could readily be mobilised by erosion and/or large rain events and discharge to watercourses.

The council noted that the June 2018 event saw large amounts of sediment and forestry harvesting debris washing out of the forest, causing significant damage to properties and houses immediately downstream.

More material came out of the forest during Cyclones Hale and Gabrielle in early 2023. When council enforcement officers inspected the forest after the cyclones they found numerous issues and large amounts of slash and logs remaining on slopes where it was likely to migrate down slopes into streams as a result of erosion and/or future rain events.

The Hikuwai bridge linking Gisborne with the East Cape after Cyclone Gabrielle.

Council enforcement officers met with company representatives in November 2023 to discuss the need for Aratu to take responsibility for the clean-up of woody debris in the forest and downstream areas, but the representatives objected to carrying out the further clean-up work on a number of grounds.

The company believed that the “Large Woody Debris” team, which was run by the council but relied on $53 million of funding from central government, would remove the slash, and said the company had already spent “millions” on cleaning up following the cyclones. It also said it would be too costly, time consuming and would have detrimental environmental effects.

Te Marunga Forest, near Tolaga Bay, Gisborne

The council issued an abatement notice and most material of concern was removed. But further concerns arose earlier this year about poor practice and a lot of debris still susceptible to being washed out of the forest.

Similar to the orders sought and recently granted by the Environment Court against China Forestry Group New Zealand Company Ltd and Wood Marketing Services Ltd, the council wants Aratu to cease discharging woody debris (including felled trees, windthrow trees, slash, harvesting debris) or sediment onto or into land where it may enter water.

It wants the company to provide the risk assessment report and risk assessment map by October 1. Among other things the council wants all woody debris removed and disposed of, and it wants the company to complete a report and map recommending locations and designs for slash catchers (structures that catch larger pieces of slash that would otherwise be flushed out of a catchment in high flow conditions) to be installed in the forest.

Aratu and its directors opposed the council’s application for enforcement orders, and said there was “no factual or legal basis” for the orders sought against the directors, “who are not shareholders and do not have an ownership interest”.

It said most of the trees in the forest were harvested in from 2010 to 2018, when the forest was owned by Hikurangi Forest Farms Ltd, and when the forest was bought by an Australian-based international forestry investment manager (New Forests) in July 2019, the previous owner agreed to complete considerable remedial work in the forest, and the council accepted in early 2022 that the work had been completed.

The company said the size and intensity of Cyclones Hale and Gabrielle were significant and extensive remedial work was overwhelmed, with many slips and failures unconnected to harvesting activity.

It said it had effectively complied with the abatement notice, but accepted more steps were necessary to reduce further risk and was carrying out work that would involve “removal of woody debris where reasonably possible as well as targeted replanting and other alternatives such as debris nets (if they are legally available)”.

Wakelin was contacted for comment.

Wakelin is president of the Forest Owners Association, which represents owners of New Zealand's commercial plantation forests. Its website says it is “one of the country's most influential primary sector organisations”, with its members owning or managing around two-thirds of the country's 1.79 million hectares of plantation forests.

Spokesperson for local environmental group Mana Taiao Tairāwhiti (MTT), Manu Caddie, said his group hoped Aratu was “taking note of the [last week’s] CFG judgement and follow some of their colleagues in accepting Enforcement Orders without wasting time and money on expensive litigation they will lose”.