Police have impounded the logs. Picture / Wanganui Chronicle

Police have impounded the logs. Picture / Wanganui Chronicle

A legal anomaly has left the Department of Conservation powerless to stop the logging of huge rimu in a pristine native forest on conservation land near Wanganui.

Last week, about 100 mature trees were felled, provoking accusations of environmental terrorism and a stand-off with local iwi, who prevented the logs leaving the district.

Taranaki businessman Chris Bergman owns the trees in the remote 200ha Taunoka Forest, near the middle reaches of the Whanganui River.

The rimu, if harvested for floors and furniture, have an estimated value of close to $12 million.

Mr Bergman bought the forest six months ago from the previous landowner, who had kept the cutting rights under a historic agreement with the former Lands and Survey Department.

The Conservation Department, which came into being later, was aware of the 1980 registration on the title when it took over the land.

Wanganui conservancy spokesman Jeff Mitchell-Anyon said yesterday that the department "was devastated".

"It goes against everything we stand for and we are powerless to stop it."

Conservation Minister Chris Carter, in Fiji for a local government symposium, could not be contacted yesterday but was said to be "extremely concerned".

Mr Mitchell-Anyon said the department could not legally prevent Mr Bergman logging his trees but he was restricted under the Wanganui District Council's plan to clearing half a hectare a year.

That included the area of indigenous vegetation destroyed when a tree was felled.

DoC estimated much more had been cleared and has referred the matter to the council.

But Mr Bergman, who will meet council officials today, disputes any wrongdoing and wants the matter sorted out.

"I own the forest. It is a good forest and I have the right to take the timber with a cut every calender year. In less than a month, it will be another year."

He said he had done everything he could to come to an arrangement with DoC, offering to sell the department the forest for $6.5 million - half its worth - or exchange it for some adjoining reverted farmland of much less value.