For decades, former sawmill workers and their whānau have carried the consequences of exposure to one of the darkest chapters in New Zealand’s industrial history. Now Sawmill Workers Against Poisons says a new Human Rights Commission report must finally lead to healthcare, redress and accountability — not another generation of waiting.
**Marama Cook, co-chair of Sawmill Workers Against Poisons — SWAP — is renewing the organisation’s call for meaningful government action following findings by Te Kāhui Tika Tangata Human Rights Commission examining the legacy of pentachlorophenol, or PCP, and the dioxins associated with its use in New Zealand’s timber industry.
For SWAP, the issue is deeply personal.
The organisation represents former sawmill workers and whānau who believe they have lived with serious and, in some cases, intergenerational consequences after workers were exposed to toxic timber-treatment chemicals.
Their campaign has stretched across decades and generations, seeking recognition, appropriate healthcare, compensation and redress, environmental remediation and accountability for what happened.
A toxic legacy stretching back decades
PCP was widely used in New Zealand’s timber-processing industry as an anti-sapstain treatment.
Concerns about its toxicity were not new even during the period it was being used. Historical reporting shows international studies had identified serious toxicity risks decades earlier, while PCP continued to be widely used in New Zealand until the timber industry withdrew it in 1988.
The contamination did not necessarily remain inside the mills.
Former industrial sites, surrounding soil, waterways and sediments were also affected.
The scale of the environmental legacy was significant enough that a Ministry for the Environment report in the early 1990s estimated there were around 450 PCP-contaminated sites around New Zealand.
In the Bay of Plenty, the Kopeopeo Canal became one of the clearest examples. Dioxin contamination was linked to historical discharges from a former sawmill where PCP had been used to treat timber, eventually resulting in a multimillion-dollar remediation programme.
Workers say they paid the price
But while contaminated whenua and waterways eventually attracted remediation programmes, workers have spent decades asking whether the same determination would be applied to them.
Historical estimates suggested thousands of timber workers may have been exposed nationwide, with a significant concentration in the central North Island.
Former workers have previously described developing illnesses after years of working around the chemicals, sometimes without understanding the potential dangers they faced.
SWAP has helped keep those stories alive.
The organisation has fought to ensure the debate does not become solely about contaminated industrial land while overlooking the people who worked on that land, handled those chemicals and took contaminated clothing back into their homes and whānau.
Human Rights Commission puts the issue back before Government
The latest intervention from the Human Rights Commission puts that unresolved history firmly back on the national agenda.
The Commission has called for meaningful action on the toxic legacy of PCP and its dioxins, framing the issue not simply as an historical occupational health failure but as an ongoing human rights concern.
That distinction matters.
If people continue to experience consequences from historic exposure, then the issue cannot simply be filed away as something that happened in the timber industry decades ago.
For SWAP, recognition must now be translated into practical action.
That means ensuring affected workers and whānau can access appropriate healthcare and monitoring, examining pathways for compensation and redress, continuing environmental clean-up and establishing accountability for the failures that allowed exposure to occur.
Māori whānau among those carrying the legacy
There is also an important Māori dimension to the story.
Forestry and timber processing have long provided employment for Māori communities throughout regions including Rotorua, Whakatāne and the wider central North Island.
For generations, mill work put food on the table and provided employment in communities where opportunities could otherwise be limited.
But that also meant Māori workers and their whānau were among those potentially exposed to the chemicals used inside those workplaces.
The consequences therefore reach beyond occupational health.
They raise questions about hauora, environmental justice, whenua, intergenerational wellbeing and whether communities were adequately informed and protected from industrial risks.
Clean the whenua — but care for the people
New Zealand has demonstrated that it can act when contaminated environments require remediation.
Millions of dollars have been spent cleaning up former industrial sites and contaminated waterways.
SWAP’s argument after decades of advocacy is that human beings deserve the same determination.
Because environmental remediation addresses only one part of the legacy.
The workers cannot be excavated and replaced.
Whānau cannot rewind decades of illness, uncertainty or loss.
And communities cannot undo exposure that has already happened.
From recognition to redress
The Human Rights Commission’s intervention creates another opportunity for the Crown to confront an issue that campaigners say has remained unresolved for far too long.
For Marama Cook and SWAP, the question now is whether this report becomes another document acknowledging historical harm — or finally becomes the catalyst for action.
After decades of campaigning, the demands remain remarkably consistent: recognition, healthcare, redress, environmental restoration and accountability.
The workers helped build New Zealand’s timber industry.
Many spent their working lives handling products they believed were part of doing an ordinary day’s work.
Now, decades later, their whānau are asking whether the country that benefited from that labour is finally prepared to confront the consequences.
The contamination may have begun generations ago. The fight for justice is happening now.
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