US Environmental Groups Seek Halt to NZ Timber Import
3/26/99
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Title: US Environmental Groups Seek Halt to NZ Timber Import
Source: Reuters Limited
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: March 26, 1999
(Reuters) - Two U.S. environmental groups have applied to reinstate a
court injunction slowing expansion of New Zealand timber exports to
the United States, Trade Minister Lockwood Smith said on Friday.
Smith said New Zealand would fight the environmentalists' bid to
freeze a U.S. District Court decision in January to lift an
injunction that for 18 months stopped the issue of new import permits
for New Zealand logs, wood chips and lumber.
``We estimate that the last injunction cost New Zealand around NZ$30-
40 million in lost sales,'' Smith said in a statement.
``We do not accept that New Zealand wood represents a threat to U.S.
biosecurity.''
The Oregan Natural Resources Council and Californians for
Alternatives for Toxics wanted the injunction reinstated until an
appeal of the January ruling was heard, Smith said.
The injunction was issued in 1997 on grounds that pests carried on
untreated wood from New Zealand, Chile and Siberia posed a threat to
the U.S environment.
NNew Zealand woo product exports to the United States have roughly
doubled in the past two years to NZ$160 million (US$70 million) a
year, or around 12 percent of New Zealand's NZ$1.36 billion in annual
wood product exports.
New Zealand Forest Industries Council chief executive James Griffith
said sales growth to the United States would have been much more
rapid if it had not been for the injunction.
This prevented new exporters entering the trade at a time when a
sharp fall in the value of the New Zealand dollar had made New
Zealand products much more price competitive, he said.
``The currency movement has been good, the demand has been strong,
those people who have been doing their business up there have been
growing their markets very successfully,'' he added.
New Zealand exporters met strict U.S. rules when sending timber to
the United States, including fumigation, he said.