The Fatality
Greg Stevens, 59, died in May 2023 when the logging truck he was driving rolled on a forestry road on the Coromandel Peninsula. He had decades of experience. The road had been in use for years. What changed was not the driver or the load — it was the formal recognition of what WorkSafe’s investigation found: Forest360’s road design, maintenance procedures, and risk assessment processes were inadequate for the vehicles and loads using the road.
Forestry had the highest fatality rate of any sector in New Zealand in 2024. The sector has known this for years. Progress has been slow.
The Enforceable Undertaking
Rather than proceeding to prosecution, WorkSafe accepted an enforceable undertaking from Forest360 — the first such arrangement the regulator has accepted from the forestry sector. This is not a lesser outcome than a fine; an enforceable undertaking is monitored by the court and carries significant legal consequences if breached. The commitments Forest360 has made include:
- Funding research into a standardised forestry road safety assessment method
- Sponsoring software capable of identifying unsafe road conditions
- Promoting new safety technology through conferences and the Forest Industry Safety Council
- Supporting education programmes including Discover Forestry and Wahine in Forestry
- Financial support for the family of Greg Stevens
The total investment exceeds $400,000.
The Systemic Problem
WorkSafe’s Tracey Conlon acknowledged in the case findings that many forestry roads across New Zealand are old, potentially unsafe, and built to engineering standards that predate modern logging equipment and payload capacities. This is not a Forest360-specific problem. It is a sector-wide condition that creates risk on roads used daily by experienced operators who may not know the road beneath them was built for vehicles a fraction of the size they are now driving.
What This Means for Forestry Contractors
For forestry contractors and transport operators, the practical implication is clear: relying on a road that has “always been used” is no longer a defensible risk management position. Current standards require road conditions to be assessed against the specific vehicles and loads being operated, not against historical use patterns.
Firms that have not conducted formal assessments of their forestry road networks — particularly roads built or significantly modified more than 20 years ago — should treat this case as a prompt to act. The research and tools being developed through Forest360’s undertaking will eventually provide better methodologies for these assessments. In the meantime, existing guidance from WorkSafe and the Forest Industry Safety Council provides a starting point.
