Ending the pillage

Back in 2015, we learned that miners were destroying Northland's wetlands to dig up swamp kauri and exporting the raw logs to China under the guide of "carved temple poles". The latter was obviously taking the piss, a pretext solely to avoid export restrictions. And now the Supreme Court has agreed:

Swamp kauri must not leave the country unless it has been processed into a product, a court has ruled.

A Supreme Court of New Zealand ruling, released on Friday, found that, to be lawfully exported, a swamp kauri item must be a product in itself and in its final or kitset form and it must be ready either to be used or to be installed into a larger structure.

[...]

The wording and purpose of the Forests Act made it clear that the definition of finished or manufactured indigenous timber product contained is intended to ensure that value is added to indigenous timber before it is exported, the court ruled.

To be lawfully exported, an item must be a product in itself and in its final or kitset form and it must be ready either to be used or to be installed into a larger structure, the court ruled.

A table top, which was not a product in its own right, could not be exported and logs with surface carving were unlikely to meet the definition, the court ruled.

Or, to put it another way, the law means exactly what it says. Which really does invite the question of why MPI thought it meant something different and that these exports were permissible. Their decision has enabled years of pillage and environmental destruction, and there needs to be accountability for it. Heads must roll.