HBRC takes hard line on theft of flood protection trees

Hawke’s Bay Regional Council is extremely concerned with the cutting and destruction of river edge flood protection trees around the region.

HBRC Operations Engineering Officer, Vince Byrne says as winter draws near more people are targeting these protection trees for firewood.

“The cutting of trees on river berm land is prohibited and HBRC will be taking stern measures to apprehend and prosecute the offenders. In fact we have already taken a number of prosecutions in the past,” says Mr Byrne.

He says the trees along the region’s rivers are a primary defence in mitigating flood flows.

“In the first instance they protect and hold the riverbank and secondly they slow water flow between the trees and the stop bank, which reduces erosion on the stop banks.”

Mr Byrne says one of the flood protection methods used by HBRC to enhance the tree line protection is to fell live trees leaving them attached to their stump. This practice is called ‘layering or lopping’ and encourages the tree to sucker into the river bank and form a dense permeable edge protection barrier.

Mr Byrne is urging anyone who sees people taking trees from the river bank should make a note of any vehicle number plates, location and time of offending and call HBRC as soon as they can.

ENDS

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