4. Economic Opportunities

This section of the study examines the potential for the development of economic opportunities around the existing natural timber resource standing on Māori land.

4.1 Methodology

While the first parts of this study are based upon data that has been captured and analysed, as we move into this part of the study there is a need for a greater number of assumptions. As many of these assumptions revolve around human behaviour, there is a need to recognise that they represent a possible outcome from a given set of circumstances, but by no means do they represent the only outcome for those circumstances.

The process used in this section has been to take some "average" situations and use these as a model for developing the potential outcomes. Where appropriate, some discussion of the sensitivity of these "averages" is given.

In any venture based on the management of indigenous forests, there are a wide range of potential employment opportunities, including the development and implementation of plans, the actual harvest and extraction operations, and ongoing forest management. The next phase of the operation could include sawing the timber, drying and marketing or even development of further value adding in the form of manufacture of finished products. These issues are discussed below.

4.2 Options for Sustainable Forest Management

Should the owners of an area of indigenous forest decide that they wish to pursue sustainable forest management, a number of options are open to them. These include the following as broad scenarios that are seen as the most likely options. It is always possible however that some other combination is developed that is not listed here.

The owners' sign over the opportunity to develop a Plan to another party and simply receive a royalty for the timber recovered. This has the least cost and risk to the owners, and is likely to produce the lowest return to the owners. The owners have no need to source capital or skills to make it happen. It is also the option that is least likely to lead to long-term employment opportunities or availability of resource to the owners should they wish to develop value added processing. The most likely scenario is that an existing miller would buy the rights to the wood to keep a supply available to an existing mill.
The owners take full responsibility for developing and implementing the Sustainable Forest Management Plan. This way they retain total control over the resource and the employment opportunities associated with the project. This option requires the owners to source both the capital required and the skills to get the Plan in place and to then begin managing the forest. It is thus the course of highest risk and greatest difficulty from the owner's perspective, but also offers the best potential for returns. The owners must also ensure they have a sound Business Plan in place before proceeding too far with the forest management plan.
The owners develop a joint venture (JV) arrangement with either a sawmiller or other outside party. The owners put in both the forest resource and a range of other inputs (such as the labour required to develop and implement the Plan) while the JV partner puts in the capital (and possibly the professional skills required to get the Plan approved). This has the advantage for the owners of ensuring a market for the timber produced while at the same time giving them a greater level of control over what is happening to their forest, and a greater share of the returns.

The majority of the discussion that follows looks at the second option - where the owners take full responsibility for the project. There are several reasons for this, including the observation that if Government were to consider involvement in any process to facilitate the development of Sustainable Forest Management Plans on Māori land, they would almost certainly require the maximum benefit to be delivered to the owners rather than to some already established business.

As discussed further in Section 5 below, there already exists among some owners a significant level of mistrust of sawmillers and of various JV arrangements.

4.3 Harvesting and Forest Management.

4.3.1 Business Planning

Prior to proceeding very far with the development of a Sustainable Forest Management Plan, it is important that the business case be carefully examined. It is outside the brief of this report to explore this issue in depth, but it would be remiss if it were not mentioned.

The owners of any forest area must be sure of their objectives when setting out to manage their forest assets. This applies equally to planted or natural forests. If the objective includes deriving an economic return from the asset, then the business case must be explored thoroughly and honestly. If this research shows the case is not compelling then some hard decisions are required which may mean the venture does not proceed.

For owners of natural forest on Māori land, there are a number of avenues that can assist with this process, and these should be explored.

4.3.2 Forest Planning

The development of a Sustainable Forest Management Plan for native forest harvest requires considerable planning and management. Included within this is the need for inventory work to determine the standing volumes present within the forest, whether there are areas of significance (such as archaeological sites, rare or endangered flora or fauna, significant landscape issues, wahi tapu etc) how any harvest will occur, what the impact of that harvest might be on the residual forest, the volumes that the forest can sustain (including the assessment of increment and recruitment into the growing stock), and how regeneration will be managed.

Often this requires some professional assistance, although there is no reason why the owners of the forest cannot be involved, and assist or even complete the work required. If they are to become involved they may wish to undertake some training in relevant fields to ensure that the Plans produced are sufficiently robust as to meet the requirements of the Act and MAF as the administrators of the Act.

The development of the Sustainable Forest Management Plan is a one off activity, in that once in place it does not have to be redone. It does require updating and monitoring. What is required however, is the production of an annual Harvest Plan for the approval off MAF, and the preparation of periodic reports updating progress in the forest.

It is reasonable to assume that given the technical nature of this planning work, outside professionals will be used to assist with, if not complete the entire process. This is discussed elsewhere in terms of how Government might be able to assist this process, for example in a manner similar to the Northland Project.

4.3.3 Harvesting

Once the Sustainable Forest Management Plan has been approved and the Annual Plan filed, the work of selecting and preparing trees for extraction can begin. This involves considerable skilled labour input within the forest. Trees must be selected according to the predetermined criteria, felled to minimise damage to the residual forest, and prepared for extraction. In addition, the slash created (such as the heads and branches for the trees) will generally require some treatment to ensure rapid decay and regeneration of the replacement trees.

The method of extraction can have a very significant impact on the labour input required. In general, extraction is either labour or capital intensive. The extremes are flitching of logs with chainsaws into pieces able to be manhandled from the forest, through to the use of heavy-lift helicopters where the whole tree is extracted to a road in one or two pieces. The manhandling option is very labour intensive and is only appropriate for very small volumes close to roads, while the heavy-lift helicopter is most suited to operations where large volumes are to be extracted in a single lift generally some distance from a road (say 0.5-2km). Heavy-lift helicopters are extremely expensive to locate and operate ($3000 plus/hour) and therefore require large volumes to spread the cost over.

For many of the forest areas under consideration in this study, the optimum solution may be somewhere between the two. For example this may require the flitching in situ of logs into pieces that a smaller helicopter can extract to a road. This involves a lot more labour than a heavy-lift, the hourly rate for the smaller helicopter is much lower, and as these smaller helicopters are far more common, the location costs for the machine are reduced. A further advantage of this type of approach is that the wood flow can be much smoother than the very lumpy flow achieved with a heavy lift approach.

The skill sets required for this part of the operation include very skilled "bushmen" confident in working in very variable indigenous timber, sound planning skills, tree selection skills, and mensuration (measurement) skills to ensure the volumes removed are correct and load sizes for extraction do not exceed the safe limits for the machinery.

4.3.4 Forest Management

Following the harvest operation, a range of other activities is required. Of particular importance here is the need for animal and plant pest control, mensuration (ongoing inventory and permanent sample plots), and for the management of regeneration whether this be through natural processes or through planting of seedlings to replace trees extracted.

These activities are very labour intensive and are required intermittently on a year round basis. The importance of these activities cannot be understated, as without close attention to these issues the sustainability of the forest management activities can be jeopardised. Should this occur, the owners would be in breach of their Plan requirements and would most likely have to cease operations.

People who have some knowledge of natural forests can complete many of these activities and would not require a large investment in training or capital. The oversight of these operations can be under the guidance of a more fully trained forest manager or a professional adviser.

4.3.5 Further Processing

Once logs or flitches have been extracted from the forest they must be further processed, (eg sawing), the timber dried to make it useable by end-users such as furniture manufacturers, and finally manufactured into marketable products.

In general there are significant requirements for capital and skills to pursue these further steps. There is also a considerable time period between the commencement of, say, drying the timber, and the completion of this process. This can be sped up by the investment of further capital in kilns or contract drying.

The skill sets required for much of this work are outside those normally associated with forest management, but ultimately form part of the value chain. For the owners of the forests, there are advantages in retaining control further down the value chain. There is however also increased risk associated with moving down the value chain. The use of professional assistance is likely to prove a good investment in this area if the skills are not currently held.

One option that does exist is to contract out the drying (and sawing if desired). This reduces the demand for capital plant and retains a high level of control in the hands of the owners. It does however increase the level of working capital required.

4.4 Employment Potential

As outlined above, in managing natural forests and the subsequent processing of the timber, there is considerable potential for employment, and the entire process is reasonably labour intensive. Considerable potential also exists to substitute capital for labour, and vice versa. For example increasing the size of the helicopter used for extraction can significantly reduce the in-forest labour demands.

For these reasons there is no firm rule that can be used to predict labour requirements per cubic metre of timber produced, but some approximations are possible. This has been broken down in the table below to employment related to the forest side of the business, as separate from the processing side of the business.

Table 4.1 - Employment Generation from Indigenous Forest Management and Processing

	Forest Management & Harvesting (Labour units/1000m3 of log)	Sawing & Processing (Labour units/1000m3 of raw log)
Labour Intensive System	2-4	2-3
Capital Intensive System	1	3

Assumptions:

Forest management and harvesting includes the planning, inventory harvesting, and post- harvest management of the forest.
Sawing and processing are those activities that occur outside the forest gate.
Labour intensive systems assume flitching of logs in the forest for extraction by smaller helicopter, while capital-intensive systems assume the use of larger helicopters and will in general only be viable for larger operations.
Processing labour requirements have been converted back to cubic metres of log as extracted from the forest so that comparisons can be made.
Labour requirements in the labour intensive system are highly variable depending upon the system used and the degree of flitching that occurs within the forest.

Newton in his conference paper makes a suggestion that 130 hectares of sustainably managed forest will create one full time job. While it is not clear exactly what this "job" consists of, nor how far down the value chain he was looking, it still demonstrates that sustainable management of indigenous forest has the potential to create employment opportunities in the regions.

4.5 Capital Requirements

Any venture involving management of indigenous forests has a capital requirement. The level of that requirement is very dependent upon the scale of the operation and the level to which capital is substituted for labour.

At one extreme is a very labour focused process where the largest capital items are a large chainsaw (and associated equipment) and a vehicle. The trees are felled and processed on site into pieces that can be manhandled out to a road. Production is very low and is by necessity restricted to small areas close to roads. This also ignores the cost and time required getting a Plan or Permit approved.

While the cost and time required to get a Plan approved can be considerable, the scale involved for a very labour intensive process such as this would generally be so small as to only justify seeking approval of a Permit. This can be done much more quickly and cheaply than a Plan.

At the other extreme are the Maungataniwha and West Coast scale operations where heavy-lift helicopters extract whole trees (or large parts of) out to roads that may be 1-2 km away. The logs are then trucked to a permanent sawmill for processing. These operations are usually harvesting several thousand cubic metres of wood per year and have very large capital needs. Even though the helicopter is contracted in to do the lifting, there is a need to pay for this extraction work months ahead of receiving an income for the wood, thus requiring significant working capital.

To have an annual (or even periodic) harvest of this size requires very large areas of forest over which the Plan is based. (As a broad rule of thumb, indigenous forest has an annual increment of 0.5 - 1.5 m3/ha/year. Thus a forest area of 1000 - 2000 hectares is required to achieve an annual harvest of 1000 cubic metres).

As discussed Section 3.19, the potential increment for many of these forests may be well below these values in the short term. This will become apparent on a case-by-case basis as the inventory and planning work is completed.

4.5.1 Capital Requirements - Labour Intensive System

The financial requirements of a small scale Sustainable Forest Management Plan are outlined below. Each case will be different, with the largest unknown being "working capital" required until income begins to be received.

The cost for establishing a small scale (say 100-500 hectare) Sustainable Forest Management Plan is made up of:

inventory costs;
development of a Sustainable Forest Management Plan;
commencement of harvesting, requiring chainsaws and equipment;
some means of capturing and recording data.
development of the Business Plan

The direct expenses, assuming some technical assistance is employed in the inventory and planning stages, may be in the order of $25000 - $30000. This cost does not allow for:

the owner's input (or wages);
extraction costs;
post-harvest costs, such as planting and pest control;
vehicles required for transport etc;
working capital until income is received.

As the size of the forest increases, the cost per hectare of inventory and management generally decreases.

The amount suggested above is seen as insufficient if the operation is to be regarded as a fully commercial venture, as it does not immediately pay for the owner's input, or provide for working capital.

It must also be recognised that there is generally a significant time delay between commencing the development of a Sustainable Forest Management Plan and the receipt of the first income. The length of that delay is dependant on many things, including:

the determination of the owners to progress matters quickly;
any sensitive issues which could result in the need for additional consultation with local authorities and DOC;
the thoroughness of the inventory and plan preparation;
the point of sale - if the owner simply sells the stumpage (standing trees), the income begins much earlier than if they wish to sell extracted logs or flitches, which in turn generates income before sales of dried, sawn timber or finished product
the ability to attract the necessary capital
the availability of the skill sets required, including inventory, forest management and business management and possibly marketing.

The shortest time frame from commencement to income is likely to be several months, while the value added route could extend this to a year or longer.

4.6 Value Added Products

People in New Zealand have had changing tastes in timber products through time. In the 1800s the premium timbers were either imported or kauri. As the resources of kauri diminished the taste turned to rimu for furniture and other higher value end uses, as well as a utility timber for construction etc. At the same time certain imported timbers (eg oak) continued to hold the premium end of the market.

By the 1980s, rimu was increasingly recognised as being a species with properties that justified it occupying the high value end of the market. Even at this time other native species (eg tawa and matai) were generally shunned. As the available resource of indigenous timber further diminished through a combination of closure of Crown owned forests and changes to legislation impacting on privately owned resource, prices and perception of all native timbers increased.

By the 1990s, recycling of native timber (especially kauri and rimu) was a thriving industry, as was the recovery of salvage timber. The price of these species has risen markedly over the past decade and is continuing to climb as availability declines.

The current situation is that native timber use is reserved for the highest value products and is keenly sought after. So significant is the demand and the price premium on native timbers, that there are significant volumes of timber being imported and sold as "surrogate" native timbers.

In addition to these changes, there have been major changes in utilisation and grade recovery. In the past there was a significant premium attached to "clean heart" grades, while sap grades and lumber with knots in it was severely downgraded. With changes to the perception and availability of these timbers the knotty grades are now sought after and marketed as "coloured", and achieve very good prices. Much of the furniture that is now available in New Zealand contains either recycled timber or coloured grades.

Products from both these sources sell well. At present there is still sufficient timber available for there to be no shortage of products for consumers to choose from. However all people in the industry, from sawmillers through to furniture manufacturers through to retailers give the same story - that they are largely surviving on material already in stock and that new timber is almost impossible to acquire.

This has also seen a significant rise in the number of cases of timber theft or illegal logging of native timber trees, including some taken from the DoC estate. This timber appears to be finding a ready market, and once processed is almost impossible to detect.

A further trend that is emerging is the rise in acceptance and availability of timber from native beech species. Traditionally these species have been by-passed or considered suitable only for utility uses (with the exception of some limited markets for high grade Southland silver beech). Improved sawing and drying technology, better marketing and the diminishing availability of traditional softwood native species have all contributed to the increasing acceptance of beech as a high quality (and hence high value) species.

This is important in the context of a study such as this, as the largest indigenous resources available are the beech species. If these were not considered high value species, the potential for management of indigenous forests on Māori land is severely curtailed.

The price that consumers are paying for native timber furniture has also risen steadily in the recent past. While some of this is due to various cost increases, a very large contributor is the rising price of the raw material from which these products are being made.

For example, a simple rimu corner unit that contains approximately 0.15m3 of timber (which equates to perhaps 0.35m3 of log before sawing and drying) has risen in retail price by over 10 percent in the past few months to around $2500. While timber is only one part of the cost of the unit, the price rise has been attributed almost entirely to the increasing timber cost.

At the wholesale level much of the cost of such a unit is made up of timber and labour. It then becomes clear that relatively small volumes of native timber can be converted into a considerable value of finished product by the addition of skilled labour and some capital. Developing a cottage level industry around even relatively small volume Sustained Yield Plans becomes feasible provided sufficient skills and capital can be made available in the initial set up.

All the market indications point to a supply deficit of native timber suitable for high value uses. This deficit has been increasingly filled by imported timber, and native timber recovered from previous use. In addition there has been the adaptation of technology to make the supply go further in the market.

For a long time native timber, especially rimu has been sliced into veneer for laminating onto substrates for doors and furniture. This veneer is relatively thin (less than 1mm). More recently some manufacturers have developed the ability to slice thicker veneer for laminating onto timber that can then be used for higher value doors and other wooden joinery. This is a substitution for solid rimu (or beech) joinery. The motivation is more associated with making the timber go further than simply trying to produce a lower cost product.

4.7 Potential Economic Benefits from Indigenous Forest Management

As has been discussed in previous sections of this report, collectively on Māori owned land there is a significant asset in the form of growing indigenous forest. Under current legislation, the owners of this resource are able to manage these forests to produce a sustainable harvest of indigenous timber, provided the forest is managed in such a manner as to ensure the long term sustainability of the resource.

This is a far cry from the circumstances that have existed in the past, where Māori often sold cutting rights to the timber on their land and were left with the funds so generated, and a degraded forest which had very limited potential for further economic return for many generations unless it was converted to some other form of landuse (such as farming or plantation forestry).

Many of the indigenous forests owned by Māori that have not been previously harvested have been left due to access and cost difficulties, rather than an earlier desire not to harvest the timber present.

Ironically those forests that previously were only marginally economic to harvest now offer some of the greatest potential to provide a long-term return to the owners. This has come about due to the slow decline of readily accessible forest, and continuing demand for indigenous timber. The decision of the Government to stop all further harvest on Crown land has further significantly enhanced the value of indigenous timber, and hence private (ie non Crown) indigenous forest that has the potential to provide a sustainable supply of timber.

Often, the economic benefits of any project are measured in terms of employment generated, and subsequent downstream benefits.

For any project involving the sustainable management of indigenous forests, many of the economic benefits accrue to regional rather than urban economies, where the downstream benefits are often greater. For small communities, the addition of one or two additional jobs can be a significant increase in the numbers employed, with flow-on to other parts of the community.

It is important, however, that any project such as this can provide more than simply an extra job or two. Regional New Zealand has an extensive history of "job creation schemes", which in some cases have been destructive of both wealth and assets in the long term.

The development of such projects must be sustainable both in economic and environmental terms.

4.7.1 Harvest Value

Any determination of the value of any forest harvest is dependent upon a number of factors. Many of these are overcome by using a common point of sale. For sales of forest produce, the usual convention is to use stumpage.

Stumpage is the net return to the forest grower (owner) after paying for harvest, transport and associated costs.

For indigenous forests stumpage is dependent upon many factors including species, location, extraction method and wood quality. It is therefore difficult and potentially misleading to quote a single value. This is further compounded by the increasing value of native timber as the supply diminishes. The highest stumpages are achieved for old growth kauri and rimu while beech and other hardwoods tend to achieve lower stumpages.

Anecdotal evidence indicates the stumpage currently being achieved across all species to be around $100/m3, with the evidence pointing to a steady improvement in returns to the grower. (Indigenous Forestry Unit pers comm.).

For planted forests the use of a stumpage value to determine forest value usually assumes the harvest of the entire stand, ie the liquidation value of that stand. For indigenous forest, liquidation of the asset is not permitted under the terms of the FAA and thus it is more appropriate to consider value in terms of the potential value of an annual harvest. As discussed in Section 3.19, the annual harvest volume is generally the increment the forest is able to produce.

The table below shows the stumpage value of the potential annual harvest from Māori owned indigenous forest. It assumes the annual increment to be 0.35 cubic metres/hectare/year, and that varying proportions of the entire annual increment is harvested each year. The purpose of this table is simply to demonstrate the magnitude of the value of any harvest and does not indicate what if any, the ultimate volume harvested from Māori land will be. Further it does not take into account the potential increasing increment that could be available from Māori land over time if sound management is applied to the forests.

Stumpage Value ($/m3)	25,000 m3/year harvest ($) Note 1	50,000m3/year harvest ($) Note 2
20	500,000	1,000,000
50	1,250,000	2,500,000
75	1,875,000	3,750,000
100	2,500,000	5,000,000
120	3,000,000	6,000,000

Notes:

This equates to 35% of the estimated annual increment potential within Māori owned indigenous forests
This equates to70% of the estimated annual increment potential within Māori owned indigenous forests

An important consideration when discussing stumpage is that it is the net return to the grower. Thus even small increases in stumpage flow directly to the bottom line and substantially increase the rate of return on the asset.

4.8 Potential Environmental Benefits from Indigenous Forest Management

The opportunity afforded under the FAA to sustainably manage indigenous forests for a yield of timber can create benefits, both in terms of economic outputs, and improved environmental management.

The improvement in environmental management is a result of two main factors. The first of these is the requirement of the Act to ensure that the timber harvested is replaced either through natural regeneration or by the planting of seedlings. Clearly, ensuring that adequate regeneration is present through natural processes will be cheaper than having to either raise or purchase seedlings and the associated costs of planting and releasing.

For many forests a significant impediment to natural regeneration is the presence of introduced animals, especially deer, goats, possums, and rats. These animals tend to eat both the seedlings as they emerge, and in the case of rats, the seed before it has the opportunity to germinate.

It is therefore in the owners' interests to ensure that introduced animal populations are kept at sufficiently low levels to maintain adequate regeneration of timber species and their ultimate recruitment into the growing stock of the forest.

These issues of lack of seed being available to germinate, or seedlings being eaten before they grow into significant individuals, is compounded by the presence of other introduced animals, particularly the predators, which can have significant effect on the natural ecological processes within the forest. For example, the seed of many tree species has much higher germination rates after passing through the gut of a bird. If the birds have been predated to the point of near extinction in a given forest, their contribution to the ecology of the forest is then lost. In the long term, these impacts will be far more devastating to the viability of the forest than the periodic removal of some of the standing timber.

There is slow but increasing recognition that forest clearance is no longer a significant issue for New Zealand's natural ecosystems, but the adverse effects of introduced pests is now the major long-term threat. Several documents have in recent times focused on some of these issues such as the "Biodiversity What Now?" document from DoC.

Timberlands West Coast Ltd in its proposals for the management of West Coast forests, recognised the seriousness of the threat posed to the ecological sustainability by introduced predators, and as a result concentrated a lot of effort into the management of these pests. It is ultimately only with a healthy forest ecosystem capable of being self-sustaining, that there will be the opportunity to have an ongoing harvest of timber.

The second significant factor is a result of the forest becoming an economic asset for the owner rather than the liability it may have been before a Plan was approved. As such it has become part or even the entire livelihood of the owner, and therefore a desire exists to maintain the ability of the asset to produce in the long term. (Māori land is often seen as a liability in a financial sense in that it can incur rates and other costs on the owners with little or no opportunity to produce an income. This is not to infer the land itself is a liability).

These two issues tend to become intermingled, but the net result is a reduction in the number of animal pests in the forest, and hence an improvement in its long-term economic and ecological viability.

Reduction in animal pests can be achieved by a number of means, including broadcast poison operations and intensive ground trapping to target different animal species. For many owners of indigenous forest, it is common to focus on the use of trapping and hunting to control animal numbers. While this is labour intensive, there are good reasons for this and there can be improved environmental outcomes.

One of the key reasons for using labour intensive methods is the perceived cost. Owners who don't place a dollar value on their labour view the cost of a poison operation as far greater than the time value of their input doing the work "by hand". As they also tend to spend quite a bit of time in their forest, they are happy to incorporate the pest control into their schedule of operations.

In an environmental sense, this intensive trapping and hunting approach allows targeting of species that may be very difficult to target with a single poison operation, and allows more intensive and regular control work, resulting in better outcomes for the forest. Many would also argue that trapping is more environmentally acceptable than broadcast poison and is certainly more labour intensive.

It should however be noted that the reverse can also occur should the owner become complacent about the requirement to control animal pests. It is therefore important to ensure that the owners or agents remain committed to the management of the forest ecosystem.

A further benefit of this "hands on" approach is that the owner gains an increasingly greater understanding and knowledge of their forest. They tend to see and learn things that no amount of "formal" inventory type work can expose. They are also more able to respond to events such as a wind-throw event in a timely manner, allowing wood to be salvaged before it can deteriorate. In small forest areas under a Plan this can be an important asset, as a single tree or small group of trees can represent both considerable value and a significant proportion of the volume allowed to be harvested. Additionally, species such as tawa (which is a significant proportion of the total volume available) will deteriorate quickly once on the ground. Thus early detection and response to wind-throw will improve both the overall quality of the management and the volume of timber that can be harvested.

The discussion above relates to what is occurring within the forest being managed for a sustainable yield of timber. What it does not address is the benefit to surrounding forests that may be of different tenure. Much of the forest standing on Māori land is contiguous with the DoC estate, especially in the Urewera tract. This is also where the majority of the total timber resource on Māori land is standing.

Pest control on one estate will clearly have an effect on the pest numbers in the neighbouring estate. If control work on both estates can be co-ordinated, there are major synergies to be achieved both in environmental improvement and in economic terms. Of special importance is the significance of these very large contiguous areas of forest when considered in ecological sustainability terms. It is in these large areas where our indigenous biodiversity has its greatest opportunity to flourish, if the pest issues can be successfully addressed.

It has been apparent to Maori for some time that DoC does not have the resources available to control pests over the very large estate it manages to the level necessary to provide an adequate level of protection. The opportunity of working in conjunction with a neighbouring landowner to enhance the Department's work would significantly improve the effectiveness of control operations for the greater benefit of both parties and most importantly the environment.

4.9 Potential Adverse Effects of Timber Harvest

Any discussion about the harvest of indigenous timber in New Zealand tends to invoke rather heated debate, much of which is based more upon ideology than science and fact. In considering how indigenous forest standing on Māori land could be developed to provide the owners with economic benefits, it is likely that some of the same debate will ensue. The major issues that are generally raised relate to some form of "uniqueness" of the forest in question, the presence of rare or endangered indigenous species, landscape, recreation and aesthetic values, and the most difficult one - philosophical opposition to natural forest management.

In researching this study there is nothing to suggest that in general the forest on Māori owned land differs significantly from forest standing upon other tenures. There are no doubt specific blocks where the forest is of such ecological value that there is a case for either preservation or even more intensive management than elsewhere, but this is the exception, not the norm. In most cases the boundary between different tenures are rather arbitrary and in many cases are as absurd as a straight line drawn on a map in an office, with no reference to either the practicality or ecological significance of such a line.

Much of the forest under consideration also has some previous harvesting history and is thus in an already modified form.

If the debate is restricted to matters of science and fact, concerning matters of uniqueness, the case for additional reservation of forest on Māori land is very tenuous indeed. Large areas of land adjoining blocks of Māori land are already in the Crown estate, within which extraction of timber is proscribed. Additionally some of the more significant indigenous areas of Māori land are already under covenant, such as Nga Whenua Rahui.

Various legislation in place requires the protection of a range of significant natural assets and also addresses matters such as landscape impact. In particular the RMA places a duty upon Territorial Authorities to protect areas that are deemed significant. The FAA goes further in that it can require reservation of representative forest areas as part of the process of obtaining a Sustainable Forest Management Plan. This representation can cover unusual ecological associations and habitats of rare or endangered species. The Sustainable Forest Management Plan itself requires the owner to sustain the forest in the long term and to control the destructive impact of animals - which is generally more than is legally required in adjoining Crown estates, and is certainly more than actually occurs on much of the Crown Estate.

In the process of developing a Sustainable Forest Management Plan, consultation with DoC is required. This gives the Department the opportunity to comment on issues such as ecological importance, the presence of endangered species, and the impact such a plan may have on adjoining areas (much of which is the DoC estate). The Department can also have input into any reservations that are required as part of the Plan approval. Further they can, if appropriate seek to have "constraints" placed upon the timing and method of harvest if there is perceived to be a conflict with, say, heavy recreational use of the neighbouring land at certain times of the year.

The issue of recreational use of Māori land is one for the owners to address. In many cases recreational use of the land by non-owners is by custom and practice, not as of right. As the land is privately owned in the same sense as Fee Simple land, the owners can at any time revoke the opportunity for people to use that land for recreation. This usually causes a small media frenzy and causes angst among those people that are affected, but this should have no bearing on the outcome of any application for a Sustainable Forest Management Plan.

There is no simple means of addressing the philosophical objection to the harvesting of native timber. In most cases the argument goes that this is an asset that should be shared amongst all New Zealanders. As such, the economic response is to say if the asset is to be protected for society, then society should pay for that protection and not impose that responsibility onto the landowner. In a round about way, the use of Nga Whenua Rahui covenants is one means by which society can contribute to the protection of what is actually a private resource. The degree to which Government is willing to fund Nga Whenua Rahui covenants can be seen as a surrogate measure of the willingness of society to protect privately owned forest assets for the benefit of all society.

The fact that society has seen the value in creating the opportunity for private landowners to manage their indigenous forests in a sustainable manner provides the mandate for Māori owners to pursue this on their land. The opportunity afforded Māori owners should be no different to that available to owners of land in Fee Simple.

The low impact harvesting techniques and sustainable management requirements that must be used under a Plan, and the requirements of Regional Plans to protect soil and water resources, further ensure that the integrity of the forest remains intact in perpetuity, and takes precedence over short term financial outputs.

Contact for Enquiries

Policy Analyst - Forestry
Innovation and Research
MAF Policy
Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry
PO Box 2526
Wellington
NEW ZEALAND

Tel: +64 4 894 0100
Fax: +64 4 894 0741
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