Denuded NZ Hillsides Shock the Tourists

New Zealand’s main industries are fishing, forestry, horticulture and most important to us, tourism. That’s crucial for a visitor to keep in mind as we travel the South Island and see the clearcut sections of hillsides, denuded right down to bare earth, which are such a common site here.

Many people make their living from those trees, so my first reaction, which is to be shocked, must be tempered with a little dose of reality. Clearcutting is a stark contrast to what some would prefer, selective harvesting. It would certainly look nicer if they could just remove some of the logs and leave other trees standing on those hills. But as Dave Judson of Biking Nelson and I rode mountain bikes beside a barren hillside, he told me some facts about the operation, which gave good reasons for this style of timber harvesting.

The timber is planted just like rows of crops, uniform plantings of the most hardy and fast-growing pine trees that they can genetically engineer in the forestry labs here. After the trees are stripped of branches, the litter is collected into rows and left to decompose. Then thousands of four-inch seedlings are hand planted on every denuded hillside. The trees are taken to Nelson’s harbor where they are shipped either to a nearby lumber mill in Richmond, or overseas. Some of the wood goes to Japan’s largest paper company, Sumitomo, and some of the wood that’s left over is cut up for firewood and donated to seniors.

Ryan Kelly, a guide who took us to the Heaphy Track, said that it makes sense to use the timber in this way. Since the clearcutting is only done in these swaths, often right next to unusable stands of Beech that don’t get cut down, it’s good use of the land. It also cuts way down on the potential for wildfires since dead wood and brush won’t pile up in the forests the way it does in our Western states.

A bigger threat than logging in NZ’s huge parklands are proposals to allow mining for iron ore, chromite and gold, which would really destroy these beautiful lands. So far most of the very green citizens here reject that notion…but Australia’s wealth comes mostly from its vast mines so if they really wanted to increase the GDP, mining is the quickest answer.