Government Blackmail and Lollypop Sticks

Last Tuesday the Wellington branch of NFAC (Native Forest Action Council) heard from a research scientist living and working in South Westland. The story told was one of wanton destruction of our natural resources on a scale unimaginable to most of New Zealand's' town dwellers.

Kevin Smith, a Ph.D student at the University of Canterbury, recounted the nature of his work, the work of the New Zealand Forest Service, the Wildlife Division and the sawmilling companies operating in New Zealand today.

The NZ Government has promised through the NZFS (Forest Service) some millions of North Westland native timber to private saw mills; including Carters Okuru (South Westland). It is now realised that the original estimates that the Government contracts were based on, cannot be filled by the Forest Service to the Private Companies.

So the Millers, Foresters and Government are looking further south to the Glacier region of the South Island for more trees. The trees the saw millers want to fell are the last stands of New Zealands Kahikatea white pine. A tree that grows to over 100 feet and that does not regenerate with the presence of man. The wood is inferior to Pinus radiata (and related species)) to a degree that as a finishing wood, local merchants describe it as "bloody awful".

However Whitepine makes a good rolling-pin, ice cream or lollypop stick owing to it's lack of 'tasting' ability. Here there is a use for less than 5% of present milling done of it, let alone increasing the amount by a few thousand square hectares. If the material is so useless then why are people like Carters prepared, in fact determined to mill it?

As the NZFS is bound by the contracts mentioned to actually make available the wood or timber to the miller; no cost is incurred by the saw miller exploiting it in getting the wood cut. That is roading (across swamps and mountain chains), and other engineering problems. In fact the miller has only to pay the nominal Government royality for the use of State lands and forests, to gain all this. Further the white pine is extremely useful as boxing on concreting sites e.g. the Waitaki hydro development scheme.

The manager of one mill processing Kahikatea said that he hopes to secure the contract to supply the Clutha development Protect with all its boxing requirements. And why is kahikatea so useful for boxing?