“Highly careless” forestry operations result in convictions and fines

Convictions and fines have been imposed for environmental damage caused during the harvesting and associated earthworks in two plantation forests in the Honikiwi district near Te Awamutu between June and December 2023.
  
Forestry management company Gray’s Forestry Services Limited and logging contractor Henry James Hale were convicted and sentenced in the Hamilton District Court on 31 March and 9 July 2025 respectively, on a total of eight charges against the Resource Management Act. The prosecution was taken by Waikato Regional Council following an inspection of the two sites after a complaint from the public was received.  

The charges related to serious breaches of the Resource Management (National Environmental Standards for Commercial Forestry) Regulations 2017, associated with harvesting, earthworks and river crossing activities on both sites, damage to the riparian margins and bed of a stream, and the discharge of sediment and slash into the Ngutunui and Waitaheke streams.  

A 6ha woodlot in Okoko Road, Honikiwi, was situated on a steep hillside above the Waitaheke Stream and was harvested in the winter of 2023.  Poor earthworks and harvesting practices by the defendants resulted in a lack of appropriate erosion and sediment controls on the site, a failure to stabilise exposed soil and little effort made to prevent sediment and slash discharging into the Waitaheke Stream.

The second site was part of a 16ha woodlot on Kāwhia Road, Honikiwi, with a tributary of the Ngutunui Stream flowing through the forest. Harvesting and associated earthworks started in December 2023 and resulted in an illegal river crossing being installed, significant damage to the bed and riparian margins of the stream, and the discharge of sediment and harvesting slash into the stream.
    
Gray’s Forestry Services Limited was convicted on four charges and fined $87,500 for its role as the harvest manager. Mr Hale, whose contracting company has since gone into liquidation, was also convicted on four charges and sentenced to 150 hours’ community work. 

In sentencing, Judge Lauren Semple said it was clear “the company was highly careless bordering on negligent in its supervision of the site and that this lack of supervision enabled or permitted the environmental damage to occur”.  She described Mr Hale’s actions as highly careless bordering on reckless, when it became clear the planned harvesting method was unsuitable for the conditions.

Waikato Regional Council’s acting Regional Compliance Manager Evan Billington said: “Completing harvesting operations on steep terrain in the middle of winter and in close proximity to a water course elevated the environmental risk, which the defendant failed to mitigate.

“Damage to the stream in the Kāwhia Road harvest block was extensive and it was apparent little effort had been made to protect the waterbody or minimise the impact of harvesting on the tributary,” he said.  

“Forest owners, forest managers and harvesting contractors all have a legal responsibility to comply with the national regulations, which are designed to minimise the adverse effect of forestry operations on the environment. Waikato Regional Council is committed to monitoring compliance with these regulations and foresters can expect enforcement action to be taken when they do not follow the rules.”

Sentencing: WRC v Hale [PDF, 240 KB]

Sentencing: WRC v Gray's Forestry Services [PDF, 213 KB]

Harvest area above the Waitaheke Stream, Okoko Road.

Tributary of the Ngutunui Stream impacted by harvesting – Kāwhia Road.

Upper section of tributary damaged by harvesting and tracking.