Forest-inflicted flood chaos stings farms

Great arcs of wrecked fences lie tangled hundreds of metres from their origin in the middle of wrecked crops.

one for farming” sentiment that environmental controls appear to foster.

LAND managers and farmers in Te Tairāwhiti have reached boiling point, once again left clearing up after a devastating flood event wiped millions off farm incomes and left livelihoods in ruin.

AgFirst Gisborne consultants

Peter Andrew and Shanna Cairns work with iwi, overseeing large tracts of tribal land in the Tolaga Bay district, one of the hardest hit in the events of early January.

“At this stage we would estimate that, of the 1400ha one iwi corporation in Tolaga has, they have had 700ha impacted by this latest event,” said Andrew. His iwi client’s land was affected by events across three different water courses, with their highvalue flat cropping land sitting downriver of the streams including the Mangatokerau, inland from Tolaga Bay.

Within that area there are kilometres of fences now gone, in some cases after having been replaced only in the past two years, after an earlier event.

GUTTED: Peter Andrew and Shanna Cairns of AgFirst say the impact on landowners in the Tolaga Bay area will total millions in lost income and repair costs, in some cases for the second time in under four years.

“We would be looking at $750,000 in damaged crops, fencing repairs and log cleanup for that one block alone. This is proving pretty hard to take,” Andrew said.

“Some farmers have lost 80% of their sweetcorn or maize crop. There is no way that can be replanted now.”

Cairns said the impact of the events on the region’s limited high-value flat flood plains has been ratcheting up over the years. This is particularly as more companies seek land further afield for annual crops as the Poverty Bay flats gain large permanent horticulture developments.

In a region where 80% of the soils are classed as highly erodible, flat land area takes on a particular significance to iwi for otherwise limited employment and income, offering alternatives to sheep, beef, and trees.

As they picked over the silt and slash left in the latest event’s wake, Andrew and Cairns said landowners are particularly bitter about the “one rule for forestry,

“A large number of farms have put in fences to stop erosion and reduce sediment.

“But a lot of the damage, from the forest waste, is coming from higher up in the catchments, and when it floods the damage from that adds significantly to remediation costs,” Cairns said.

Andrew acknowledged that the use of willow trees for erosion control along with pines is proving problematic, with the trees often jamming up flooded waterways when not managed appropriately.

The advisors also maintain Gisborne District Council (GDC) could do more to raise the standards of forestry planting and harvest practices, and enforce those standards.

But GDC mayor Rehette Stoltz defended the council’s role in enforcement.

“Complying with consent conditions is the responsibility of the consent holder, the obligation sits with them.

“Since 2018 the council has increased monitoring of the 233 5-10 year consents in the region, and forest consents are only one type of monitoring we do.”

She pointed to the five prosecutions undertaken by the council against foresters after the 2018 Tolaga Bay event.

Andrew said he and landowners accept sediment-based erosion is part and parcel of farming in a region with some of the world’s most vulnerable soils.

“But with the addition of logs on top of that it is much worse. A large amount of harvesting has gone on in forests planted after Cyclone Bola [in 1988] and there is now this period of vulnerability that extends five to eight years post-harvest before the next rotation of trees start to grow.

“This will continue to provide a source for the additional flood material.”

He said the impact of such events on the harvested forest hill country is significantly greater than that on established hill country pasture and is easily seen around Tolaga Bay where the two sit side by side.

Andrew and Cairns said they appreciate the efforts forestry companies have taken after this

Trees on Farms

event to quickly rally around communities, offering equipment and staff to help clean up.

“The companies have been good at helping out. But it is still difficult for us and clients, this has already happened. We are the ones who have to take the damage reports and cost to iwi shareholders in the coming year.”

Cairns said it is a given that some of the country needs to be re-planted in permanent natives in the most highly erodible areas for carbon credits, rather than harvestable exotics. But she acknowledged the significant additional costs that incurs, and the associated management for long-term protection of them.

Both support a commission on inquiry into the region’s land issues but said there needs to be a high level of independence, given the vested interests across all land uses.

After initially denying a need for an inquiry, the forestry sector has acknowledged the value of a review with a 20-50 year outlook in a region twice the size of Auckland, with only 3% of its population.