Pine industry under fire at United Nations forum

Indigenous issues: Mana Taiao Tairāwhiti representative Renee Raroa presented the group’s concerns at a meeting of the United Nations in New York. Ms Raroa gave a three-minute speech at the 22nd Session of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Video image supplied

The United Nations has been called upon to investigate “the harm caused by the pine industry in Aotearoa New Zealand”.

Gisborne woman Renee Raroa, a member of land use practice interest group Mana Taiao Tairāwhiti, presented the group’s concerns at a meeting of the United Nations in New York this morning.

Speaking at the 22nd Session of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, Ms Raroa, who grew up in Rangitukia, addressed the forum with an overview of the history of land use in Tairāwhiti.

“In recent years, our territories have been repeatedly devastated by cyclones and floods, choking our waterways and coastlines with thick sediment and woody debris from clearfell plantation harvests.

“Over a century of deforestation has degraded our land, river, and marine systems, caused irreversible landscape changes, interrupted our climate cycle, and destabilised the balance between Ranginui, our sacred Sky father, and Papatūānuku, Earth mother.

“Throughout the 80s and 90s, the colonial establishment, the Crown, aggressively promoted conversion of land to exotic pine and promises of economic prosperity, passive income, sustained employment and erosion prevention — none of which has come to bear.

“Only now, at the end of the first harvest cycle, is the undisclosed harm of this industry becoming clear.

“Communities are contractually locked into intergenerational commitments that will continue this forced destruction. The costs, to our landowners, of withdrawing from these contracts are simply unattainable.”

In her three-minute speech, Ms Raroa went on to criticise the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme.

“Over the past three decades, pine plantations have rapidly increased in our territories for failed erosion prevention projects, timber and carbon credits.

“The New Zealand carbon credit system privileges exotic pine over native species, and pine is promoted by Crown scientists as a climate and erosion solution.

“The only acceptable solution is an immediate moratorium on clear-felling and the restoration of biodiverse native cover.

“We emphatically oppose carbon credits from pine as a climate solution.

“The pine industry, in conjunction with the New Zealand Crown government, is jointly responsible for multiple indigenous rights violations, culminating in the loss of life, forced displacement and broad ecocide, aquacide and cultural genocide.”

“The urgency of the climate crisis affords us no time to engage in false solutions.”

Ms Raroa concluded her speech by “urging” the Permanent Forum to support Mana Taiao Tairāwhiti’s recommendation that the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment independently investigate and report on the harm caused by the pine industry in Aotearoa New Zealand.

“We further call upon the Permanent Forum to  encourage all member states to centre the rights and wellbeing of indigenous peoples, indigenous ecosystems, lands, and waters as the only true and just pathway to climate stability.

“In this there is hope for all.”