Forestry Compliance Monitoring

Marlborough District Council (MDC) has set rules in our Proposed Marlborough Environment Plan (PMEP) to safeguard our freshwater resources and ecological systems in relation to forestry activities in Marlborough.

Read the Proposed Marlborough Environment Plan (PMEP)

The National Environmental Standards for Commercial Forestry (NES-CF) regulate forestry practices to prevent any major negative impacts on the environment.

Read the Resouce Management (National Environmental Standards for Commercial Forestry) Regulations 2017

Why Can Forestry be a Problem for Water Quality?

While the long-term effects of harvesting may be minimal in the grand scheme of the forest's life, the immediate consequences of this activity can harm the environment and lead to violations of the PMEP and NES-CF regulations.

Forestry can cause sediment and debris to enter waterways during harvesting, which can damage aquatic habitat. The diversity of aquatic life present in the small creeks within a forestry area can be quite surprising.

• Excessive woody debris can damage streams, and reduce oxygen availability
• Heavy machinery can cause damage to soils, vegetation, habitat, and stream banks and beds
• Practices that leave unstable or aging trees within riparian zones can be destructive due, as the elevated roots of these trees may damage stream banks.
• Poor harvesting techniques such as dragging logs through a waterway can cause significant bed and bank damage, and release sediment into the water
• Harvesting can result in soil erosion, and sediment entering waterways.

What Can I do to Make Sure Forestry Doesn't Harm Water Quality?

The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) has created resources that provide guidance on forestry activities. For each forestry activity, MPI has information on relevant NES-CF regulations, including:

• the activity definition - what is and isn't covered by the NES-CF
• conditions you must meet for that activity to be permitted
• how to determine when the activity requires resource consent.

What Happens if Things Go Wrong?

MDC serves as a regulatory authority tasked with ensuring compliance with the Resource Management Act (RMA). Instances of rule violations may occur, leading to environmental damage. In such cases, we have various measures at our disposal, as outlined in our Enforcement Policy.

What kinds of activity might lead to breaches of the rules?

• Work that exposes soil, such as forest harvesting, site development earthworks, cultivation, or using sacrificial or fallow paddocks. Such activities are prohibited where no measures have been taken to control sediment discharge
• Working in waterways
• Bird nest failures
• Slash mobilised to waterways
• Depositing and leaving slash in waterways

Compliance Overview

During 2023-24 monitoring period 46 forestry block inspections were undertaken.