New slash standards in place next month

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

Tighter standards to combat forestry slash by targeting new plantings are poised to get a final sign-off.

Slash damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in Tairāwhiti forced lawmakers to revisit the mild amendments they had planned.

The stronger changes to the National Environmental Standards for Plantation Forestry (NES-PF) go in front of all ministers in the Executive Council on Monday.

The Government has said the changes will mean more power to local communities, with an aim to have fewer pines planted on farmland and more on highly erosion prone land.

“Amendments . . . will see the environmental effects of permanent pine forests being managed the same way as plantation forests,” it said in June.

At the start of the year, before Gabrielle, a review had found the 2018 rules for managing slash were “fit for purpose” and needed only a tweak.

That has now been upended.

The stronger standards could be gazetted as early as next Thursday, and come into force a month after that. — RNZ