Government Ministers’ criticism of the Gisborne District Council’s efforts to cut down on destructive forestry debris is cynical, illogical and cruel, says the Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA).
It is cynical because it echoes the forestry industry’s talking points on regulation verbatim.
It is illogical because the Gisborne District Council only made more effort to rein in the abuses of the forestry industry after the Government’s own Ministerial Inquiry found that it had capitulated to forestry corporations’ demands and had not done enough to reduce their harm.
And it is cruel because it prioritises the profits of overseas corporations over the safety and economic well-being of Tairawhiti/East Coast residents, who have had to deal with the periodic floods of forestry slash and sediment that devastate roads, bridges, beaches and farmland, not to mention being life threatening.
CAFCA Organiser Murray Horton says the largest players in the forestry industry are foreign corporations that process logs overseas and produce only minimal employment in New Zealand.
For years they have reaped profits and left local government to manage the cost of cleaning up the destruction they leave in their wake.
“Gisborne District Council has finally got off its backside and taken serious steps to make the forestry companies accountable for their impact. One of those steps is to make forestry companies’ directors personally liable for the cost of cleaning up their messes,” Horton says.
“Now the Minister for Forestry, the Minister for Rural Communities and most recently the Minister for Regulation, David Seymour, have spouted the forestry industry lobbyists’ line and opposed these regulations.
“Seymour is quite open about the fact that he is speaking out after receiving a letter from Summit Forests, a subsidiary of the Japanese company Sumitomo Corporation. He has told the Gisborne District Council to go easy on the forestry companies because it creates ‘uncertainty’ for overseas investors.
“But there is no uncertainty here. The Council is effectively saying ‘You break it, you fix it’. Gisborne Mayor Rehette Stoltz had the correct response to Seymour and the other ministers. She said it was only when company directors have faced personal consequences has there been any improvement.”
Horton says that forestry companies have lost the social license they had to operate unimpeded. Until now, they have privatised the profits from unsustainable forestry practices and passed the costs on to the public.
It is important to make directors personally responsible so they cannot hide behind the contractors and subcontractors who often operate on thin margins and in dangerous conditions, he says.
Seymour wrote to the District Council: “I would like to remind you that the Government’s objective is for New Zealand to welcome those wanting to invest capital here if there is no risk to national security”. To which, Horton says that forestry slash has been shown, time and again, to pose a threat of both death and mass destruction – the very definition of national security.