A river full of forests near Tolaga Bay after Cyclone Gabrielle.
Photo: RNZ/Alexa Cook

With Tai Rāwhiti’s forestry sector in decline, local experts are calling on the government to step up and put more effort into providing resources to move the region towards more sustainable land use and other economic opportunities.

Forestry has stopped in some areas – part of the fallout after the district was hit by devastating cyclones Hale and Gabrielle last year.

The region is full of ideas for relocating Whenua and Whānau Tai Rāwhiti from pine plantations. Te Weu Charitable Trust is a collective of local researchers and activists focused on the future threats and opportunities for the region.

Researcher Manu Caddy is associated with the trust and told RNZ the government has been slow to think outside the pine forestry box it has relied on for so many decades.

“It’s extremely urgent. We need to at least tackle the plan now, if not implement the whole thing right away,” he said.

The Hikuwai Bridge in Tai Rāwhiti was destroyed by wood debris during Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023.
Photo: RNZ/Alexa Cook

He worries that extreme weather events will become more intense and frequent, increasing the risk of the region becoming dependent on pine trees.

“The longer we leave it, the worse condition we will leave this place to our children and mokopuna,” Caddy said.

“It is very, very urgent that we address this. Ideally, the transition should already be at an advanced stage, because the longer we leave it, the more difficult it will become. The soil becomes thinner with every rain and every landslide.”

‘A tragedy’ if Tai Rāwhiti does not pass

Caddy said the government must step up and do more to support a shift away from pine to more sustainable land use because it was responsible for clearing much of the land for pasture farming and extensive pine plantations.

“The central government seems to have a certain obligation to support a transformation that they are reluctant to admit needs to happen at all, let alone leave it behind,” he said.

However, Forestry Minister Todd McClay told RNZ this was not a view shared by himself or many experts in the forestry sector.

“Forestry is an important part of New Zealand’s economy and provides many jobs on the east coast that need to be protected,” McClay said.

“The Government is working closely with the GDC and respected members of the forestry industry to manage and reduce risks through better and more practical policies.”

He said the government was reviewing cutting management practices and would amend national environmental standards for commercial forestry so that local governments could apply more stringent local regulations where required and based on clear evidence.

“We want them to focus on high-risk areas, which is what the GDC is currently doing, rather than suggesting there should be no forestry in the Tai Rāwhiti region anymore,” he said.

However, Caddy found that this was not enough.

“It would be a tragedy if we didn’t accept this situation and think that somehow everything would magically work out when all the evidence clearly points in the opposite direction.

“Unfortunately, there are a lot of vested interests and a lot of money tied up in assets that don’t want to acknowledge that.”

“Indigenous people with deeper and stronger roots are adapted to this land.”

In the region, 600,000 hectares are used for pasture and pine trees, and erodible soils and slopes make up almost 90 percent of Tai Rāwhiti’s land. Caddy said this led to the loss of valuable soil and the collapse of mature pine plantations.

Pine trees were razed to the ground by Cyclone Gabrielle.
Photo: RNZ/Alexa Cook

“What will have to be replaced are the permanent natives. Native people with deeper, stronger roots are adapted to this land because it was here before we cut them all down,” he said.

With the push to plant more native species to protect soils and slopes, the challenge is how to make money from it.

Caddy said ideas included selective logging of native timber, honey production, eco-tourism such as an east coast trail similar to pilgrimage paths in Europe, and making medicines from plants.

One of Caddy’s designs already did this and showed great potential.

“So we have a product that we have developed for treating eczema, based on kānuka leaf oil, and we are in negotiations with several companies in the US and Europe for a global license for this product,” he said.

Another solution was carbon and biodiversity credits. Renee Raroa is also part of the Te Weu Charitable Trust and is working with Toha NZ to develop an online platform to reliably measure and validate regenerative outcomes.

For example, when east coast manuka honey buyers paid for some new plantings.

“We capture evidence that planting has occurred and, using our data templates, we start to collect evidence that the trees are staying in the ground, the weeds are under control, the pests haven’t eaten them – essentially proof of action,” she said.

The verified data asset was then “packaged” so that it could be included in the product, purchased and reused.

“In reality, another type of buyer is a carbon offsetting entity, which may be an issuer that has to buy carbon offsets but wants to show that it’s not investing all of its money in, for example, pine,” Raroa said.

She said that with new digital public infrastructure, they can measure the true value of environmental action and unleash impact investments on the front line – at scale.

“There were no aspirational careers.”

The region also has many economic ideas that do not involve any trees or plants, such as Rāngai, a film studio that offers free secondary and tertiary education and work in the screen arts industry.

It is the brainchild of local Shannon Dowsing, who returned home from working abroad to find that the main activities in Tai Rāwhiti were still truck driving and chopping wood.

“I saw that there was a lack of options at Tai Rāwhiti – there were no aspirational careers,” he said.

“We really targeted screen arts not only to tap into the creativity and natural talents in the region, but also to identify with our culture and use that as a strength for the region.”

Because, he said, the time of forestry was over.

“The industry cannot serve us in the long term, it has lost its social license to operate, and the land is simply not suitable for continuing forest plantations.”

He wanted to improve the educational achievements of the region.

“These are the results we need to move large parts of our society out of work-related roles and into well-paid roles to start seeing parity in the workforce.”