Community members still reeling from the devastation of ex-tropical Cyclone Hale had their say as the question of what happens next was discussed at a meeting at Uawa's Reynolds Hall last night.
Public group Mana Taiao Tairāwhiti last week presented a petition to Gisborne District Council calling for an independent inquiry after the severe damage caused by forestry slash during the storm event. The petition, titled “Stop the ongoing environmental disaster in Tairāwhiti” has received over 9300 signatures.
Mana Taiao Tairāwhiti organised last night's meeting where the community got to share information and connect.
“We have been dealing with this for about 10 years and with so many meetings with the Eastland Wood Council and GDC,” Mana Taiao Tairāwhiti organiser Hera Ngata-Gibson said.“This meeting was for community members only. We heard from those directly and indirectly impacted by slash and sediment. There is a lot of anger and trauma there.
“A lot of people worry about the next lot of rain and what it will do. One family who has been farming around Uawa for generations said that Cyclone Bola was nothing compared to what they have to deal with today.
“A lot farmland is damaged so there is a lot of mahi to do. They aren't going anywhere; it's their homes.”
Green Party MP Eugenie Sage attended the Uawa meeting to hear and see first-hand what the region had gone through.
“This is climate change,” she said. “Tairāwhiti is experiencing the very real effects of more intense weather events and have been for some time.
“I support Mana Taiao's call for an inquiry. We need a forum where there can be discussion of how we manage the land use issues with forestry slash and the impacts on people, whenua, awa and moana.”
She reiterated the call for forestry companies to take greater responsibility.
“It is making sizeable profits from the logging exports. It employs people, but it's the community, land and sea bearing the impacts of it.”
The Government needed to listen to the people, she said.
Alanya Limmer, a Resource Management Act lawyer from Uawa, also attended. She answered a lot of questions about legal options, what kind of independent inquiry they should push for, what a people's inquiry might look like if they were not happy with the Government inquiry terms of reference, what an enforcement order can achieve, how quickly it could be enacted and who could initiate orders.
She also talked about rule change processes and being a pilot region for the Resource Management Act reforms.
Mana Taiao Tairāwhiti organiser Manu Caddie highlighted one “good” suggestion from the floor — “that Māori landowners as shareholders should be holding their committees to account around land-use practices on their blocks”.
Mr Caddie said the next step for Mana Taiao Tairāwhiti was “getting organised into work streams of volunteers around the region and outside the region to focus on the priority tasks”.
These include —
■ Meeting with the district council to discuss the recommendations put to them at last Thursday's council meeting.
■ Establishing a strong communications network to keep interested residents informed and sharing opportunities for action.
■ Building an evidence base of impacts and options for policy and rule changes.
■ Organising a symposium on the science around land use in the region and policy situation (this is likely to coincide with an art exhibition and music event).
■ Progressing legal avenues to achieve desired outcomes. The group is looking at joining the Environmental Defence Society's legal proceedings it has launched, “challenging the lawfulness of plantation forestry regulations yesterday”.
■ Ensuring the independent inquiry is truly independent with opportunities for local input in the process at all levels of the public inquiry.
■ Ensuring a regional Just Transition Plan is supported by central government and is developed through wide community participation, rather than being managed by “regional leadership which doesn't seem to have achieved much to date”.
■ A roadshow of events similar to the one in Uawa to update communities on what is happening.
