The Forest Service goes public on Whirinaki

At a recent press conference 'ONeil, the current Director-General of Forests, is once again trying to play God — in Whirinaki this time, "These dense stands have a limited life." he said, "in two to three hundred years they will cease to exist."

One wonders how they managed to exist over most of the lowlands of the North Island before man arrived. And how they have survived for two hundred million years without any help of the Forest Service just defies the imagination.

"These dense stands are a first crop following the Taupo eruption (of 140 AD)", Mr O'Neil claims - no evidence was forthcoming to suggest why the podocarp forest should wait 1200 - yes 1200 - years before deciding to recolonise the area devastated by the eruption.

It is tempting to look at Mt Tarawera which erupted in 1885 and devastated a considerable area - yet substantial podocarp regeneration has already occurred after only one hundred years. The evidence is quite overwhelming enough for me to convict the Forest Service of deceiving the public and the politicians so as to gain support for their plans to play logging games in the last of our great mixed pdocarp forests.

The Forest Service also fancy themselves as experts on wildlife too. When Mr O'Neil was asked if logging was going to threaten birdlife - apart from suggesting birds might benefit he said there was "no threat at all." This is most curious when one considers that the area is reknowned for its abundance of kaka and parakeet which is most unusual. The kaka feed on bugs in the rotten wood of dead and dying trees. What I want to know is how the Forest Service thinks the kaka is going to benefit by the removal of all the dead and dying trees by selective logging. Don't tell me — "Let them eat cake" left over from loggers lunch boxes!