Communities near Nelson, New Zealand lashed by the tail end of tropical cyclone Gita, are demanding action on forestry practices that some residents say are dangerous and unsustainable. Source: Stuff NZ
Devastation caused by the storm, which hit a week ago, has left many people on edge in Marahau, the small community that serves as the gateway to the Abel Tasman National Park.
“It was the most horrifying thing I’ve ever seen,” said Phil Reid, describing the moment when, mid-afternoon on February 20, part of a pine forest on the hill next to his house gave way.
“I just heard a noise, I ran out of my back door and the whole gully was virtually moving past below me. And then part of the hill opposite me came crashing into it.
“It was just a wall of logs and muddy water and huge boulders smashing together.”
Mr Reid said his house, several hundred feet above the flat, and about four kilometres inland from the coastal village of Marahau, shook with “the sheer force” of the landslide, to the sound of breaking trees.
“Whole pieces of bush went past with trees standing on them, until they starting smashing themselves to bits.”
He watched from his Otuwhero Valley Rd home, fearing for the safety of people below.
“I thought I was going to come down in the morning when the water had receded, and they might not even be there,” said Mr Reid who only managed to make it out of his house the next day, after forestry workers cleared a path.
Residents on the flat were surrounded by mud, but escaped injury or major damage to their homes.
“I actually just can’t believe no one’s died,” said Marie Palzer who lives on the other side of the hill.
She had raced onto the paddocks below her family home, as a “tsunami of logs” crashed down the hillside, chasing her horses towards the road.
“The amount of water that was running through here was so strong. At one point me and my brother did a full-on river crossing like bracing each other, walking sideways to get to the other side of this paddock.”
As the pair “ran around” trying to move the animals, they heard the wire fences snap “as the wood from the forestry smashed through
“It didn’t take long until the next wave came through; all the wood had dammed up and then it broke through which made a massive gush come down.”
The primary school teacher said ex-cyclone Gita had changed her family’s lives.
“I’ve always felt really safe here and it was always our paradise. I don’t feel the same about it anymore. The creek that we used to play in as kids and the swimming hole that we had, and things like that, it’s just gone.”
Ms Palzer described the forestry practices in the hills behind the family’s house as “shocking” and “lethal”. “If they cleaned all this stuff up from the forestry, it wouldn’t be lying here now.
“The amount of water … no one could control that. But the stuff lying around here, that could have been avoided.”
Another resident, Mitch, said the landscape has been changed by silt, with paddocks half a metre higher than before the storm.
He had viewed the damage from a hill by the Otuwhero Inlet, where a house had collapsed during a landslide in native bush in 2013, killing 63-year old woman, Jude Hivon.
“The silting up [of rivers] is because of the forestry practice,” he said.
He said the last time something similar happened was in the 1970s; after forestry workers last harvested trees in the region.
Several residents met with representatives from the forestry industry and Tasman District Council over concerns about the logging practices.
Those talked to by Stuff said the meeting was “positive”, and pointed out that many slips had come down in areas of native bush.
It came as a petition began, calling on the council to implement stronger controls of forestry in the Tasman region. More than a thousand people had signed the petition, started on the change.org website by James Griffiths, who lives in the Motueka Valley, along a tributary of the Motueka River.
“There is a property further up the Motueka Valley … that had a lahar virtually, that went through their property; massive pine logs.”
The question needed to be asked whether forestry was the right thing to be doing on “highly-erodable, unstable hillside,” Mr Griffiths said.
“It’s not unreasonable for people to expect that forestry is managed in a way that doesn’t cause a whole lot of harm to private property or damage to the environment.
“It’s quite clear that that’s not happening and that the TDC [Tasman District Council] haven’t been strong enough in regulating the industry or enforcing what regulation there is.”
In an interview with Stuff, Nelson manager for Tasman Forest Management, Craig McMiken, said some areas around Marahau had already been replanted since the winter harvest last year.
He said the company understood residents’ concerns.
“With climate change we need to continue to reassess where it’s appropriate to plant.”
He said trees had been planted with increased “setbacks” to allow native riparian areas to grow, as required under the “New Zealand environmental code of practice for plantation forestry”.
But Mr McMiken said he was “very comfortable” with the company’s logging practices.
“We’re carrying out engineering work and harvesting practices to the highest standard. We’re always looking at ways to do things better, but we feel we have the best mix of expertise and gear to do the job.”
While he acknowledged the increased risk of “downstream effects” on forests up to seven years after harvesting, he believed forest canopy then protected the land when the trees were aged between seven and 26 years, before they were cut down.
“We’re doing everything possible to be good neighbours,” Mr McMiken said.
The company was helping residents with the clean up.
Tasman District Council believed some of the residents’ concerns would be addressed through a national environmental standard for plantation forestry, due to come into effect on May 1. It would allow the council to place “more stringency” in areas like Separation Point Granite, spokesman Chris Choat said.
