The incident that resulted in Rotorua based forestry servicing company PF Olsen receiving an $80,000 fine in the Environment Court, occurred on some of the steepest and most erodible country in the world, says PF Olsen CEO Peter Clark.

'While forests do a great job at minimising erosion during a 25-30 year growing phase, unfortunately the steep slopes are exposed during the harvesting phase until a new crop of trees gets established, usually a period of five or six years,” says Peter.
'In this case the slips occurred during a one in 20 year high intensity localised rainfall event.
'We recognise that the building of roads and skids required to carry out harvesting exacerbates the risk and that special skills and care is required to cope with such storms.
'Fortunately in this case no long-term environmental harm was done.”
In sentencing submissions, PF Olsen says it moved quickly following the slips to clear debris from the stream and that subsequent monitoring had confirmed that the stream was now running clear and native aquatic life had returned to normal for streams emerging from forest areas in the region.
PF Olsen further submits it is strongly committed to protecting the environment during harvesting operations and since the incident has boosted both staff capability and training of staff and engineering contractors in an attempt to avoid a repeat incident of a similar nature.
Peter's pleased that Environment BOP is now engaged with the forest industry to explain its expectations around harvesting activity sediment controls, and looks forward to on-going consultation.
He also hopes the prosecution won't discourage investors from planting trees on steep erodible hill country in the Bay of Plenty and elsewhere.
'New Zealand needs more trees on such land, not only for soil protection, but also to help offset carbon emissions from other sectors if we are to improve our national carbon account balance,” says Peter.