Feds call for govt inquiry

In a letter to Emergency Management, the Forestry Minister, and the Associate Environment Minister, Federated Farmers claimed residual woody material left in situ after exotic forestry harvesting had been a contributing factor to increased damage and would need to be part of the brief provided to the inquiry team.

The letter to Ministers recommended holding meetings with Tairāwhiti landowners and residents, and with Gisborne District Council.

"Gaining the community’s view on where they see themselves in the future will be key to improving the long-term economic, social and environmental sustainability of the region," the letter said.

Meanwhile, Federated Farmers national board member and former Gisborne-Wairoa president Toby Williams says no one can do anything about heavy rain.

He says local ratepayers cannot afford the sizable bill required to repair roads and bridges in the region year after year.

He says that in the wake of Cyclone Bola in 1988, tens of thousands of hectares of trees were planted on highly erodible land in the province with the idea of stabilising slopes.

“Now those trees are being harvested, re-exposing those slopes,” Williams says. “The storms haven’t changed – in fact they’re more frequent. And they are exposing current harvesting practices and the detrimental effects they are having on downstream catchments and communities.”

He claims that under current government regulations, mass plantings of exotics are encouraged, especially in the Gisborne region.

“If, as we are being led to believe, they are all going to be harvested, then there needs to be an urgent rethink on how and where we harvest to ensure we will not repeat the issues when the next cycle of logging looms,” he says.

Williams says forestry operators are aware of the problem.

“They’ve improved and to be fair to them, like everyone else they’re keen to see some blue skies,” he says.

He adds it’s not always anybody’s fault when slopes fail.

“But if it is skid failure [temporary trails in logging areas], and things like that, then we have to ask questions about those practices that were supposed to have changed after the devastation of the 2018 storm.

“We need to get some inspectors up in the air and observe where all the debris has come from, and then what our pathway is going to be going forward,” Williams says.