Wairoa District Councillor Craig Little says forestry is "killing" Wairoa and is disappointed it will remain a permitted activity there.
"Forestry kills our communities because the entire infrastructure that is created by farming is gone," Mr Little said.
"Every commodity necessary for forestry is sourced from out of town - tree plantings, chemical sprays, workforce, where an average farm sources the majority of its commodities from Wairoa."
He said tourists did not want to see forestry and it was damaging to the environment.
"When harvest time comes, every ecosystem built up over 20 years or more is lost due to the annihilation of the countryside; whether it's track formation, skid site earthworks or the dragging of the trees, forestry is destroying the land, its soils and waterways.
"There is what is known as slash left behind, hanging over the edges of steep hill country - problems waiting to happen in heavy rain - this slash/debris ends up on our beaches. Foresters have to be made responsible for the downstream effects."
He said pre-1990 planted forestry would never be converted back to pastoral farming because forest owners need do nothing to earn an income.
"Under the Emission Trading Scheme they can lock the gates for 40 years and throw away the key."
A 2000 Lincoln University study - A Comparison of the Employment Generated by Forestry and Agriculture in New Zealand - found decline in employment for forestry and agriculture. It said forestry's labour requirements "came in bursts" and that other studies had found regional variations.
"The New Zealand data shows that, on balance and not including the indirect or induced effects, total employment per 1000ha generated by forestry is greater than agriculture," the report said.
"Since much of the forest area is now maturing then it is reasonable to expect that total, 33 employment per 1000ha, will increase in future as relatively more wood matures and is processed.
"The important feature of these forestry employment data is that they show that most employment is generated in processing which occurs in regional centres.
"Therefore the majority of forestry employment is not associated with the planted area. In contrast, most of the total agriculture employment is in the on-land category and therefore the majority of farm employment is associated with the land used for agriculture."
Wairoa District Council chief executive Peter Freeman said Wairoa had experienced a large swing to forestry but it was proving to be a solid employer.
"We have a particular problem here in that the land is so cheap," he said. "My neighbour, who is American and works for a German company, now owns six or seven farms in the Wairoa area. He said this is the cheapest land in the world and the Government pays us to plant trees."
Mr Freeman said Wairoa didn't want to be just a carbon sink, but forestry's benefit was far-reaching.
"We don't want forestry without chainsaws but the real return on our forests is to the larger forestry companies outside Wairoa - we are part of the wider GDP. We have got to stop thinking about where our boundaries are - the industry is bigger than that."
"A letter from [forestry investor and manager] Roger Dickie to support the retention of rail says he has 13 million tonnes of trees to cut down in the Gisborne/Wairoa district in the next few years - that's the equivalent of 450,000 truck and trailer loads."
Mr Freeman said to regulate farm conversion to forestry would not be popular among many farmers.
"Whenever there has been a suggestion in the past that we wouldn't allow forestry in a certain area, the first people to complain has not been the foresters but the farmers.
"They say, we want to sell our land to anybody - don't restrict our potential sale - when I want to retire, and my son doesn't want the farm, I want to sell to anyone and get out of here.
"So if we are going to say no forestry there is going to be only one bidder and that's the farmer. At the moment that is not an issue because farming has been been profitable for the last couple of years but for the 10-15 years before, forestry could pretty much buy anything - there were no farmers willing to buy."
Wairoa would get its share of jobs in the future and two mills in town were "flat out" with about 40-50 employees.
"Craig's problem is depopulation of the rural area - that is happening with or without forestry."