On the call for urgency over land use changes

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

Opinion

Re: Petitioners slam regulatory caution, demand swift land use rule overhaul — March 19 story.

Mana Taio Tairāwhiti are out of line calling for immediate changes to land use in our region. Yes, we need to make changes to both forestry and pastoral farming. But we need to consider what the best solution will be. Saying plant it all in natives is well meaning but naive. Where will the funding come from to grow them, prepare the land, then nurture them and ensure pests and exotic weeds don’t overrun and destroy them?

They need to be careful too that the land-owners are part of the solution. It is from this we make out livelihoods. It is how we feed our families. It is how we ensure we have a prosperous local economy.

Yes, we need to make changes but they need to be well considered.

Clearly the leadership were either not part of our region in the 1980s, post-Bola, or have very short memories. It was fast knee-jerk reactions trying to solve the issues from Bola that have led to some of the consequences we face today post-Gabrielle.

The pace that Mana Taiao want to go at risks similar unintended consequences again.

Let’s take the necessary time to get it right this time so we do not repeat the mistakes of the past.

Toby Williams

(a) Pine plantations as a solution to 88 percent of the region being erosion-prone was not a knee-jerk reaction post-Bola. By the 1950s it was well accepted that clearing the land of native forest was a mistake and the government started supporting large scale pine plantations as well as experiments with other tree species, including natives. Much of the pine in the region is not eligible for carbon credits because it was planted prior to Bola.

(b) We don’t need to plant it all in natives but the footprint of pine and pasture needs to shrink dramatically.

(c) There are opportunities for non-native, non-pine tree species - there is a workshop on these options provided by the NZ Farm Forestry Association this week in Gisborne.

(d) We need seed islands of indigenous trees established with good pest control and Nature will do the rest.

(e) Before 2030 the Government plans to spend up to $28 billion on offshore carbon credits that could instead fund the indigenous forest regeneration on all the marginal farmland in Tairāwhiti as well as compensating landowners for a portion of the profit they might otherwise have made off continuing with ultimately unsustainable farming on that land.

(f) Mana Taiao Tairāwhiti called for a Just Transition Plan for the region in January 2023 — little formal progress has been made to date, but a number of local groups and companies are now working on the foundations for new industries based around truly sustainable land management practices. The transition should include mechanisms to reduce the pain for farmers and forest owners who have invested in unsustainable land use.

(g) Gisborne District Council will complete a detailed assessment of the whole region next month that will reveal the erosion risk on every square metre of land in the region — that data will be invaluable for determining what should be retired permanently and the rules can be changed now to reflect that reality. The proposed rule changes are currently focused on forestry and initially only in the Uawa catchment, but everyone seems to accept pasture on erosion-prone land is just as significant a problem. It seems GDC needs more support to urgently address that issue also. The timing of the land-use transition under the new rules and any support available from central and local government to facilitate the transition is where we need the discussion to focus, which can happen both before and after regional plan changes are notified.

Manu Caddie