Major gaps in GDC position says Mana Taiao Tairāwhiti

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

A policy position for the clean-up of woody debris on beaches approved by Gisborne District Council operations committee yesterday was “unacceptable”, the community group that called for a review of land-use rules earlier in the year says.

Mana Taiao Tairāwhiti consulted among its members and came to an agreement that the position has major gaps and central government needs to provide more support to the council.

“There is no time frame provided for addressing the more substantive issues including woody debris in rivers and streams,” spokesperson Manu Caddie told the operations committee before their deliberation and decision on the policy.

“Sediment is doing just as much damage to waterways and the marine coastal environment, so this is not just about pine plantations, willow and poplar.

“Rivers, streams and the ocean floor have just as much cultural, recreational and economic value to communities as beaches” Mr Caddie said.

“For example, local divers have struggled to collect kaimoana and the fishing industry has had to withdraw from a number of bays because of woody debris on the sea floor.”

Mr Caddie acknowledged that freshwater bodies, private property and the marine coastal environment would involve additional complications, with many more stakeholders, different legislation and increased logistical and safety challenges.

But Mana Taiao Tairāwhiti agreed with a number of the councillors who spoke about the overlapping impacts and consequences of delaying action on other parts of the environment for which Gisborne District Council had responsibilities.

Mr Caddie agreed with councillor Ani Pahuru-Huriwai, who rejected comments from some of her colleagues about the beaches looking beautiful at present.

“They clearly haven’t visited Tolaga Bay in the past week, let alone Tokomaru or Tikapa beaches,” Mr Caddie said.

“Councillor Debbie Gregory picked up on the issue of sediment but staff suggested sediment isn’t a major issue on beaches, so it wasn’t considered.

“This highlights the problem of trying to deal with interconnected issues separately but also staff capacity, which is clearly stretched too far if we have to wait years for action on these most pressing issues.”

The requirement to remove woody debris within six weeks received a lot of attention in the meeting but was only an “aspiration”, according to council staff who spoke at the meeting.

Mr Caddie said some forestry companies believed that time frame was too short while other stakeholders consulted said it was too long.

“So even in a best-case scenario, if we have a weather event at the start of summer,  beaches are likely to be unusable for the whole holiday period. It could be well into autumn before anyone does anything.”

Mana Taiao Tairāwhiti members also have concerns about private property within a number of catchments still littered with pine trees.

“Some of these properties only have one company with pine trees upstream and while they have pulled them out of the riverbed, they dumped the logs right outside the front door of one home.

“We need much more urgent attention upstream from the beaches and there is no indication of when we will get a policy in place, let alone mechanisms to apportion responsibility and costs. Clearly they need more resources to progress these issues faster.”