May 20, 2000	atimes.com

Oceania New Zealand bars rainforest logging By Bob Burton CANBERRA - The New Zealand government has introduced legislation that will bring to an end a 30-year campaign by environmentalists to stop the logging of publicly-owned temperate rainforests, and transfer them to national parks and other conservation reserves. Indeed, in announcing the decision to bring the logging to an end, New Zealand's Prime Minister Helen Clark said: ''These rainforests will go into the conservation estate and they will be there in perpetuity both for their intrinsic value, and also of course for the ongoing benefit of the visitor and tourism industry on the West Coast.'' ''Public attitudes to logging in publicly-owned indigenous forests have charged markedly,'' the minister responsible for Timberlands, Pete Hodgson, told parliament on Thursday. ''These lowland forests are considered by many New Zealanders to be a unique and significant part of our natural heritage, too valuable for logging of any sort to continue.'' The legislation, which was announced Monday and is expected to pass through parliament in August after being reviewed by a parliamentary committee, has been welcomed by environmentalists and condemned by sections of the timber industry. Green activists are disappointed that the government approved the logging of the rimu, the main species that the current logging in rainforests is for, for two more years, but just the same believe the new legislation is a victory. Despite the continuation of logging of rimu trees for two years, Native Forest Action spokesperson Dean Baigent-Mercer said the public campaign for a stop to it had achieved the permanent protection of huge areas of outstanding native forest on the West Coast. ''Our campaign has been 98 percent successful in what we set out to do,'' Baigent-Mercer said. In November last year, the New Zealand Labor Party was elected to office on a platform of cancelling temperate beech rainforest logging proposed by the government-owned logging company, Timberlands, and ending its logging of the rimu forests. The Labor Party's tough policy followed revelations last year that Timberlands had hired the New Zealand branch of the international public relations company, Shandwick, to run a secret campaign to gain support for an expansion of logging. Leaked documents revealed that part of the campaign involved trying to influence the Labor Party's policy as well as seeking to ''neutralize likely opposition'' from conservation groups. In one of its first acts after being sworn in December last year, the government announced the end of the beech scheme proposal. However, Timberlands supporters waged a vigorous campaign, including a large public rally, in support of rimu forest logging. For now, despite the decision to stop logging in publicly owned temperate forests, the government is allowing continued logging of 500-year-old rimu trees in the ecologically important Orikaka forest, home to threatened species such as great spotted kiwi. The New Zealand Greens, which hold the balance of power in parliament, had addressed the Cabinet arguing that there was no legal or moral impediment to ending the Orikaka logging next month and the rest of the logging at the end of August. But in a concession to the logging industry, the government approved the logging of the Orikaka forest until its completion in another five weeks, with the remainder of logging in other areas to be phased out by the end of March 2002. The leader of the New Zealand Greens, Jeanette Fitzsimons, was dismayed at the decision. Instead of immediately protecting Orikaka, she said, ''the logging . . . will continue until the forest is largely trashed.'' Kevin Smith, the conservation director of Forest and Birds, one of New Zealand's largest environment groups, said: ''The logging of rainforests on public land by a loss-making public business was a blot on our record that is now being removed.'' ''The decision to delay the end to all rimu felling until March 2002 is an unfortunate concession to the rimu logging industry,'' Smith said. ''However, when the March 2002 deadline arrives and the famous North Okarito forest and Saltwater forest can then be included in the South West World Heritage Area it will be a wonderful day.'' Hodgson said the decision would achieve a significant conservation gain while minimizing the risk of job losses. ''Government policy is to end the logging as soon as practicable.'' ''Allowing it to continue until 2007 would be too long from a conservation point of view. Ending it immediately would give the timber and furniture industries no time to adjust, putting jobs at risk. Our proposal balances those considerations. It would mean job losses need not occur,'' he explained. To offset any possible job losses, Hodgson announced that a NZ$120 million compensation package to develop alternative industries on the West Coast. Last week, Hodgson told parliament that that there is ample timber from a range of sources to keep the furniture industry going and to aid the conversion of timbers coming on stream from West Coast plantations. Meantime, Native Forest Action will continue campaigning against the remaining logging operations. The group ''is now turning its attention to persuading the government to get the loggers out of the priceless forests of Okarito and Saltwater now, rather than these being the forests sacrificed during the next two years for rimu timber,'' Baigent Mercer said. (Inter Press Service)

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