A city councillor’s two-year fight to prevent Nelson City Council forestry land being replanted in pine ultimately failed its last-ditch attempt to change course. The council now faces another 30 years of commercial pine, unless it decides to rip out saplings from about a third of its 600 hectare forestry land a few years down the track. Source: Stuff NZ
It is a saga that started publicly when councillor Rachel Sanson called for a “rethink” of council forestry due to concerns it was only of marginal financial benefit and at great environmental cost.
What followed was, in Sanson’s words, a “kafkaesque” process in which her best efforts to follow advice from staff and elected members has almost invariably culminated in accusations of trying to move too quickly and being out-of-step with council process.
Sanson has had some level of success, however. Though her own proposals have not usually managed to get majority support, her advocacy has resulted in a forestry review looking into the costs of developing a regenerative forestry plan prioritising indigenous planting (Sanson’s proposal was to simply develop a regenerative plan).
That review is due to come back to the council within the financial year of 2021-22, meaning the council will have an indication as early as April next year whether it will likely continue its commercial pine forestry under its current business-as-usual approach.
Councillor Sanson fought to have replanting of the forests due for harvest delayed until the review came back, but ultimately her amendment failed to get enough support to get over the line.
The council is scheduled to harvest about a third of its 600-hectare forestry land over the coming years, under its current activity management plan (AMP), which means those blocks will be harvested and replanted in commercial pine.
Sanson said she applauded the upcoming forestry reviews, but she still had concerns. At the last council meeting last year Sanson said she had asked the forestry subcommittee what the intention was around that forestry review work and was told it would be rolled into the next AMP which was maybe four years away.
“We’re going to be four years down the slope of unintended consequences if the forestry review work offers something alternative.”
Mayor Rachel Reese pointed out Sanson’s proposal was procedurally out-of-order, but the council did spend considerable time considering and discussing what Reese said had become a “quite circular discussion”.
She said she allowed it to make clear, in a public meeting, why steps had been taken in the order they had been, and to make it clear that there was no “obfuscation around the review”.
Despite the procedural issues, councillor Matt Lawrey spoke in favour of Sanson’s proposed delay.
“A significant chunk of elected representatives around this council can’t believe that we’re doing a review of forestry, but before that review is completed, we’re going to plant pine trees on council reserve land that will be there for 30 years,” he said.
“That just doesn’t make sense, that we would do it in that order, so that’s why it’s become a circular discussion, and any opportunity we have to push pause is an opportunity we should take.”
However, several councillors did not support Sanson’s proposal because of the procedural problems.
Councillor Gaile Noonan was one; saying “the process is incorrect – not necessarily the sentiment”.
Reese also spoke against it, both because of the procedure and “for the substantive reason that this would not be good land management”.
“We have land where harvest has been undertaken, and ‘slippery slope’ is the right words … it’s a slippery slope procedurally, but also what you would be doing is leaving land bare.”
Group manager of infrastructure Alec Louverdis said under the current AMP, “pine is harvested and replanted – they are one and the same”.
“It all comes down to risk, and keeping those slopes open, in that particular area, especially with the likes of the Maitai river, is a risk. There is a possibility that we will get an intense rainfall event or a prolonged rainfall event that will increase slips and will add to ecological or environmental negative events,” he said.
However, he said it was possible to “reverse” decisions on replanting later down the road, and from a land management practice it would be better to rip out replanted pine trees and replace them rather than to leave the slopes bare.
PF Olsen representative Sam Nuske said deferring planting would increase risk over time.
He said juvenile pines and weeds provided “sufficient stability” about three years post-harvest.
“The highest risk period is straight after harvest … the risk goes down as you replant over the years. So by deferring it, … the group feels that delaying it by an additional year is exposing that highest risk-profile period for that land.”
Councillor Rohan O’Neill-Stevens spoke in favour of Sanson’s proposal to delay replanting, despite that advice. He said the delay was not a significant, and said concerns raised that her proposal predetermined the review’s outcome were unfounded.
“I think the opposite is more true: That by taking a moment now to look and see what the results are, we’ll be able to make decisions that are more financially prudent for our community,” he said.
“I don’t think many people … would be particularly thrilled if it was [announced] ‘council goes in and rips out all the pines they’ve just planted because of a change in direction’.”
A significant part of the meeting was an in-depth explanation of how the council’s forestry financials were managed, a sticking point Sanson has raised several times over concerns ratepayers were not receiving the benefit of pine harvest profits.
Forestry subcommittee chair and chartered accountant John Murray said there had been “a lot of confusion about the numbers” and it was “time for clarification”.
Sanson has raised concerns about the financial benefit to ratepayers from forestry since September 2020, as forestry operates in a “closed account”, and at the meeting repeated that no dividend had been paid from that closed account. Concerns have also been raised by members of the public.
Murray said the council’s return on investment for forestry were between 10% and 12%.
He also said he needed to clarify the expectations around “dividends”, explaining in “accounting 101 for councillors” that a dividend is “redistribution of surpluses” from a company to its shareholders, citing the example of the Port Company paying dividends back to the council.
“Now in the forestry’s context, that’s all in-house … so the forestry doesn’t necessarily have to pay a dividend because the money is already in the tin.”
He said the council currently had about NZ$1.5 million in the forestry accounts, and it was “always available” for the council to use for any purpose, but he warned councillors that they needed to think carefully about any potential transactions to avoid “just moving deck chairs around … in terms of economics”.
He noted that forestry work, paid for out of forestry budgets, benefited ratepayers in other ways. He noted forestry bridges used for recreational and emergency access, and work to secure the Dun walkway which was funded through forestry accounts because the land had pine trees on it, even though it was not a commercial forestry asset.
“If we put that expense into parks and reserves, you would have an increase in your rates of about 1% just for that activity … so while these aren’t obvious from the accounts – because the accounting system is a blunt instrument, it just records money in, money out – there’s a whole lot of benefit going back to the wider comm of the Nelson City Council.”
Sanson’s last appeal was to highlight the “prudence [and] fiscal responsibility” of the delay,
“We have in front of us [the opportunity] to make a future-focused decision for the 21st century that is going to be climate resilient, that is going to benefit future generations rather than just falling back to the status quo 20th century forestry clear fell forestry position. This is simply a deferral of potentially a few months, maximum 12 I’m sure, and it seems a very, very reasonable and prudent request.”
Ultimately, Sanson’s delay was not successful. Councillors Kate Fulton and Mel Courtney were not present, and out of the 11 remaining votes, only four were in favour.
Councillors Sanson, Lawrey, O’Neill-Stevens and Pete Rainey voted to delay replanting.
Excluding the forestry blocks already set aside for retirement from commercial planting, the commercial pine blocks due to be harvested over the next few years will be replanted in pine for harvest in about 30 years, unless a future council decision changes tack or rules to rip them out early and replant in another species.
Maitai forestry blocks are due to be replanted up until Christmas 2022. Blocks in the Marsden are due to be replanted in the winter of 2023.
