NZ Labour Party Would Halt Timberlands Logging
9/13/99
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Title: NZ Labour Party Would Halt Timberlands Logging
Source: Environment News Service
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: September 13, 1999
Byline: Bob Burton
WELLINGTON, New Zealand, September 13, 1999 (ENS) - The New Zealand
Labour Party announced Friday that if it wins government at the
election due later this year it will stop all logging of rainforests
on public land on the west coast of New Zealand's South Island.
The Labour Party policy announcement is a setback for the publicly
owned logging company, Timberlands West Coast, which had hired the PR
firm Shandwick New Zealand to run a multi-million dollar lobbying
campaign designed to win approval for its rainforest logging plans.
The campaign was described in one of its internal strategy documents
as designed to "neutralise" its environmental opponents.
The Labour Party announced that if it forms government it will end
the rimu logging in rainforests on public land and the "trials"
Timberlands proposed for a new logging scheme based on beech trees
will also be stopped.
Dr. Michael Cullen
The Labour Party Deputy Leader, Dr. Michael Cullen, announcing the
new policy said that it would establish a panel of experts to
identify land currently under Timberlands' control that should be
transferred into National Parks and other conservation reserves.
As a sweetener to the local economy, Cullen said Labour would
"transfer any management of the remaining land, along with cutting
rights for any timber on those lands, to a local economic development
trust with the West Coast community being the beneficial owners."
"I am confident that we can put together a credible economic
development package for the West Coast. This package will provide
more jobs than the Coast was ever going to get out of the logging of
publicly-owned indigenous forests," Cullen said.
The incumbent National Party, led by Prime Minister Jenny Shipley, is
trailing badly in the polls and suffered a five percent slump
following the controversy over the recent revelations of the secret
Timberlands lobbying campaign. The Labour Party, which was one of the
targets of the lobbying campaign, has promised an inquiry into
campaign run by Timberlands and Shandwick.
The forthcoming election, probably in mid-November, is likely to
result in a government being formed between a coalition of parties
including the Labour Party, the left-wing Alliance and possibly the
New Zealand Greens. Both the Alliance and the Greens have strong
positions against rainforest logging.
For the last 20 years the logging of New Zealand rainforests has been
a major environmental issue with most of its native forests now
excluded from logging. The 130,000 hectares of public land set aside
for Timberlands West Coast has been one of the main outstanding
logging issues in the country.
The announcement has not been without political cost to the Labour
Party. Following the announcement, the Labour forestry spokesperson,
Jim Sutton, announced his resignation from his portfolio position,
having failed to persuade his colleagues to support ongoing logging
of the rainforests.
The Labour Party's policy announcement has drawn strong support from
environmental groups that have been campaigning against Timberlands'
logging of the West Coast rainforests.
"Despite all the secrets and lies surrounding Timberlands' logging of
West Coast native forests, Labour has steered its way through the
grubby PR hype to show visionary leadership and a solid meaningful
policy," said Native Forest Action spokesperson Dean Baigent-Mercer.
"By ending the logging of the native forests and providing the local
community with a sincere regional development package intending to
create local jobs - aimed at no net job losses - both conservation
and the West Coast community are the winners" Baigent-Mercer said.
New Zealand's largest environment group, Forest and Bird Conservation
Society, also welcomed the decision. Forest and Bird's conservation
director, Kevin Smith, said, "Once again the west coast region will
reap greater employment benefits by managing the beech and rimu
forests for nature conservation, recreation and tourism than by
logging them."
Smith sees the new policy as a electoral plus for the Labour Party.
"When Labour had landslide victories in 1972 and 1984, they had as a
key part of their election manifestos some great green initiatives.
In 1972, Labour saved Lake Manapouri from a hydro-electric scheme and
in 1984 they ended the logging of publicly-owned native forests in
the North Island."
"The future of West Coast forestry lies in plantation forestry rather
than in destructive out-of-date rainforest logging," said Smith.