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March 28, 2023
Aquaculture selling point for revised barge plan
Adam Gifford
Posted On March 28, 2023
A member of a group trying to build a barging facility at Te Araroa says Cyclone Gabrielle has highlighted the need for such a facility.
Tiwana Tibble says emergency work done at the port of Gisborne to allow containers shipping shows how opening up the blue highway will benefit the region.
Reports on the environmental and cultural impacts of the project are now available and another hui is planned for mid-April to keep the community up to date.
He says they’re trying to future-proof the plan, now called Kahui Kupenga, to embrace greater opportunities than just shifting logs.
“If you can build a couple of rock walls you’ll bring back biodiversity, you’ll bring back kina, you’ll bring back paua. Maori, we’re always interested in kaimoana. That ticks our box. When we talk to our whanau and about the opportunity for aquaculture, the eyes just light up,” Mr Tibble says.
Even if the current inquiry into forestry led by former MP Hekia Parata brings about changes to land use on the East Coast, there are still 20 years of logs which need to be harvested and taken away.
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