95bFM Repurposing slash: what can be done about the devastating debris
21 February, 2023
Interview by Milly Smyth, adapted by Stella Huggins
Image from Mika Korhonen on Unsplash.
Cyclone Gabrielle has wreaked havoc over the North Island, but a noticeable and avoidable source of damage has been slash. As widely reported, slash is waste products from the forestry industry, mostly in the form of large branches. This debris has annihilated infrastructure such as bridges, in the extreme flooding the region has seen recently.
Tairāwhiti farmer and national board member for Federated Farmers, Toby Williams, told Milly Smyth on The Wire that a change in harvesting practices is imperative. One strategy to minimise the impact of waste is to repurpose branches and utilise them to create energy and biofuels. Additionally, chipping the debris means that in extreme weather events, its impact on infrastructure won’t be as severe.
Williams stresses that approaches can’t be “cookie-cutter” plans. “What we want is bespoke rules that look at, especially for our region, highly erodible soils that are sensitive and fragile.”
The reason these solutions haven’t been implemented already is cost. Transportation costs out of rural areas and to ports are “one of the biggest single costs”, according to Williams. A potential solution to this, in his opinion, is the establishment of micro plants set up in isolated regions, to process closer to the source. A barrier to this is of course the cost of set-up, and the lack of technology in the industry for this idea to be rolled out.
On this front, Williams believes “the government needs to step up.” He feels the talent to create these innovative solutions exists in Aotearoa, but that “it’s just a matter of people actually having the courage to step up and do it, or the funding behind them to do it.”
The view of locals is that the community should not pay the price of the industry’s sub-par management of their waste. Williams says the government should take some responsibility for this, but also the landowners who created the waste.
He compares the issue to mining and dairy farming, citing the strict regulations on both industries to manage their effluent products and ensure they don’t reach waterways. If this had happened in their industries, he says “you’d be shut down in an instant.”
But it isn’t just residents of the flood-stricken regions that have involvement in the issue or can rally for the cause. Williams says that slash needs to become an election issue and that the public of Aotearoa needs to “put pressure on the ministers, especially Minister Nash [the Minister of Forestry], to actually get some teeth into this and not be pro-forestry.”
“With an election coming up, the public have power with their votes.”
Public interest journalism funded by New Zealand On Air
