The gospel according to O'Neil

Why the forest service can do a better job than God!

Once upon a time (1965) there was a forester (Mr Bob Collins) who lived in the middle of the most beautiful forest (Whirinaki). This forest contained the last three stands of totara forest left in the whole world.

One day he noticed that the totaras were dying when they were only 350 years old, which is young for totara which can live for 1200 years. He called in the wizards from the Forest Research Institute in Rotorua who, after 5 years could find no spell to save these forests and pronounced them doomed. Doomed to die, not at the hands of God but by axe and saw.

"One of these (3 areas of totara forest) was in such a bad state that it has been totally logged, we are felling the seond one now and the third has no sign of disease.

"This last area is all green and healthy and we are keeping our fingers crossed and hoping it escapes disease at least until we have come up with some answers. We have put a road into it but will not touch it unless the trees start to die and we can do nothing to save them." Thus spake the forester. Bob Collins on 10 January 1972.

What do we find in 1979?

Of the 500 hectares of dying forest all but 40 hectares was clear-felled. The remaining 40 hectares has now recovered and is alive, and well and all set for another 800 years or so of life ! The Forest Service have committed perhaps the most heinous crime of the the entire history of man in New Zealand. Their blind arrogance in presuming to know better than nature (and that's only crossing their fingers and hoping) has cost us our last totara forest and probably completely unnecessarily.

The third area of totara forest which was not to be touched unless it too tried to die, the Forest Service is now logging regardless of earlier interviews to reserve it. At current logging rates this last stand will be extinct in 14 years.

Despite blatant evidence of 40 hectares of healthy totara forest, the Forest Service will not admit they might have been wrong. Like the spot of blood on the hand of Lady Mac-Beth, this 'spot' of totara forest will haunt the Forest Service till their dying day.

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!

So what is this selective logging?

Mr Andrew Kirkland, the Assistant Director-General of Forests, recently commented that the published literature on selective logging "would lead one to be somewhat disturbed." Selective logging is the new Forest Service technique of removing less than all the timber in a forest - extraction rates vary from 20% - 80% of the volume of timber.

Results from trials on the West Coast and in the West Taupo forests show that in dense stands, following research standard selection logging losses from wind throw and damage induced disease exceed the natural increment. That is - the Forest Service has administered the "kiss of death" to these forests which may progressively fall apart until no forest remains.

In the name of scientific research they are now risking doing the same thing in Whirinaki's dense stands - those described by Sir Charles Fleming as the noblest stands of all. Mr Ure, the Conservator of Forests, Rotorua, has said that this attempt to manage a forest of this type is the first in the world; what he forgot to mention, is that it is also the last. If they blow this one they'll have to wait a few centuries before they get another crack.

If Mr Kirkland is "somewhat disturbed" by the published literature, I am more than somewhat disturbed by that which has not been published. Mr Ure said that a selective logging trial had been carried out in Whirinaki in 1975 with clear felling equipment which had "an unacceptable level of damage" but the results will not be published — because they are "atypical". The days of the opennes of science are not so much numbered as past. When asked when results from West Coast trials would be published Mr Kirkland replied, "There is a lot of work to be done before we get entirely satisfactory answers."

Hardly a fair and open presentation of the facts to help the public formulate opinions on Forest Service operations.

And talking of formulating opinions, the Forest Service have published a management plan for Whirinaki forest and invite public comment. Copies available from Forest Service Head Office for $2. More information on the forest and how to write a submission to Mr John Ure, Conservator of Forests, PO Box 1340, Rotorua is available from the Native Forests Action Council (Wellington), PO Box 11 -101.

Submissions have to be in by August 17th - whatever opinion you have developed, make sure Mr Ure knows what it is. Our forests are in your hands - and remember the Forest Service's understanding of "balance" is, having lost 99% of our dense lowland podocarp forest in the North Island they want half of what is left in Whirinaki! Will the last great podocarp forests become the late great?

Alistair Graham.