SEWG – 5th November 2024

“The working group travelled far and wide, as far as from Timaru to attend our yearly meeting hosted by Environment Southland. We spent the morning learning about Wilding Pines, Dam safety Regulations and had a session on different sediment control options, when to use, benefits and disadvantages. We also had an update from both Regional Councils on compliance monitoring, which highlighted some key issues for the industry, including ensuring that the land prep operators’ knowledge around slash and waterways is up to the same standard as our harvesting contractors. Installing storm water controls onto stable ground is fundamental and we aren’t always getting right. A focus area for council is ensuring maintenance of controls to ensure their effectiveness is vital.

In the afternoon we got to see this in practice, hosted by Rayonier Matariki Forests, we discussed the NES-CF rule regarding 10m diversion before a stream crossing and what ‘good’ looks like here. It is fair to say we can all continue to learn and collaborate on this going forward as it is very site specific. We were also shown an older skid site that required some different thinking to ensure it was managed appropriately to eliminate the risk of slash entering a nearby high valued stream.”