New Zealand Logging Contract Angers Green Party Leader
9/20/99
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Title: New Zealand Logging Contract Angers Green Party Leader
Source: The Press
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: September 20, 1999
Byline: Peter Christian
About 50,000 rimu trees will be felled over the next eight years if
Labour honours new Timberlands West Coast logging contracts, says
Green Party co-leader Rod Donald.
Recent statements from Timberlands West Coast and sawmiller Westco-
Lagan have angered the Green Party, which will now seek to pressure
Labour to immediately end the logging should it become the
Government.
"The Green Party is appalled that Timberlands is locking in long-term
contracts and has, only a few weeks ago, signed one contract until
December 31, 2007," Mr Donald said.
His comments come after confirmation that such a contract was in
place, and that a Labour Government was prepared to honour it. He
said the newly arranged contracts were aimed at forcing the next
Government into continued native forest logging.
Last week the Green Party complimented Labour for its pledge to stop
Timberlands' beech scheme and its commitment not to honour new
logging contracts.
Now it seems that Labour might be prepared to honour the Westco-Lagan
contract, Mr Donald said.
He said his party would pressure Labour to end the logging
immediately after the election.
"It seems that Timberlands is deliberately engineering long-term
contracts to try and tie the hands of whoever becomes Government," Mr
Donald said.
"While National had backed the beech scheme, it had pledged to stop
the so-called Buller overcut of rimu next year.
"Labour may have given Timberlands a loophole as wide as a
Timberlands hauler site by saying existing contracts would be
honoured.
Both Labour and National must call the Timberlands board to account
and stop these strong-arm, contract-signing practices," he said.
Logging opponent Native Forest Action is adopting a different tack.
It is calling on New Zealand's furniture industry to stop relying on
native timber. Spokesman Dean Baigent-Mercer said rimu was not the
only option for furniture making and its presence or absence from the
marketplace should not be used as an excuse to stall the end of
Timberlands' native forest logging.
"The pro-native logging argument that if furniture manufacturers
can't use rimu they will switch to clearfelled tropical timbers is
not correct," Mr Baigent-Mercer said.
"Specialty timbers such as douglas fir, macrocarpa, eucalyptus, black
walnut, and pinus radiata are ready for use.
"Most people couldn't tell rimu from macrocarpa or matai from black
walnut. It's merely the name that sells rimu, not because it is
essential as a furniture-making timber," he said.
Meanwhile a political visitor to the Coast, United's Peter Dunne,
said the Labour Party's recent policy announcement to rip up the West
Coast Accord was clearly a suicide note to West Coast voters and the
depth of anger and feeling of betrayal felt by Coasters could not be
underestimated.
"Sustainable logging of beech has the capacity to both retain jobs in
the sawmilling industry as well as create new downstream
opportunities on the West Coast in further processing and furniture
industries," he said.
On Friday, Labour's Pete Hodgson called for the party's wilder
critics to calm down.