Julian Kohn: Eastland Wood Council Chairman on the forestry sector being ordered to clean-up slash

Forestry industry voices say keeping 100% of slash and wood debris inside forest boundaries is operationally impossible.  

Gisborne District Council has obtained an enforcement order forcing two companies to properly manage the sediment risk.  

Samnic Forest Management is appealing the order and says it would probably go bankrupt if it went ahead.  

Eastland Wood Council Chairman Julian Kohn told Ryan Bridge they're trying to get a better deal.  

He says the industry is trying to find an environmental, social, and economic balance. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Right now. Gibsban Council's forestry rules have company directors warning
that could go bankrupt. The Environment courts ordered Samnik Forest
Management and Woodlet Investments the land owner to clean up
slash near Tolliger Bay. It's messy. There's an appeal before
the High Court and a scrap over who should fit
the bill. Julian conn Is, the Eastland Wood Council chairman
with me this morning, Julian, Good morning, good morning, how

(00:22):
a good thank you. Julian. Is it possible to clean
up all the slash and stop it leaving the land.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
In practical reasons, No, it's not. We live in a
woody environment.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
In our region.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Of course, anybody who lives here will appreciate that whenever
it rains we have stilts coming out of our streams
and our rivers as a matter of course, and always
have had, and that's how the Poverty Bay flats were created.
So from an operational point of view, the industry's view
is that while we are managing movement of woody debris

(01:00):
and set them in out of our forests, the constraints
that the Council is currently imposing on our standard consent
conditions for harvesting and roading mean that they are wanting
us to stop one hundred percent of Sultan woody debris
coming out of their forest gates, which of course is

(01:20):
totally impractical and operationally impossible.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
It would make operating the impossible.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Pretty much. Yep.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
So what do you do?

Speaker 2 (01:32):
Well? We're currently in negotiation, have been for a couple
of years around trying to get some practicality and reality
around some of those standard consent conditions. We have been
talking to them for two years trying to get them
to understand that what the industry is trying to find

(01:53):
is an environmental and the social and an economic balance
in respect of what we're doing and our organizations. But
we haven't really need a lot of progress to date
to be honest.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
At the moment, this order from the Environment Court requires
the companies and directors to ensure woody debris sediment would
not enter water and land outside of the forest boundary.
Does that mean that you would be operating in breach
of that?

Speaker 2 (02:20):
If you had a resource consense which stated that, then yes,
you would be.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
Are there companies now in breach of it?

Speaker 2 (02:33):
There are companies which have resource consents which are set
under older rules and regulations and if they were to
emit woody Debrian sediment outside their forests then they would
be in breach of it. Yes.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
Interesting, Jillian, appreciate your time this morning. Thanks so much
for being with me. Jillian conn who's the Eastland would
Council chairman. For more familiar with Ryan Bridge, listen live
to News Talks it be from five am weekdays, or
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