Timberlands West Coast Ltd beech management prescriptions, PCE environmental management review No. 2

This assessment of Timberlands West Coast Limited's (Timberlands) plans to log beech forests on the company's estates is a follow up to a substantive review of Beech Management Prescriptions carried out in 1995. The intent of this review is to promote informed discussion of the wider management framework and ecological principles within which Timberlands and private indigenous forest owners operate, to ensure future native forest uses are sustainable.

The original review, and this follow up, focus on the adequacy of Timberland's plans in terms of the ecological sustainability of the proposed harvesting regimes. An examination of the consultation process used by Timberlands and ongoing environmental auditing to be carried out forms a substantial part of this review.

The plans prepared in 1998 show strong evidence of uptake of previous PCE recommendations, and are an improvement on the 1995 prescriptions - they contain extensive information on ecological management matters and display an awareness of the principles of sustainable management. However much of the reference material is not publicly available, and therefore not verifiable. This inability to access and verify supporting information is of particular concern when considering the adequacy of consultation and the public participation processes undertaken by Timberlands. In fact Timberlands appears reluctant to include public and tangata whenua consultation in its process. There is also a lack of specific details as to when, how and by whom an environmental audit will be conducted of Timberlands operations, or if the outcomes of the audit will be publicly available.