A Northland conservation group is taking on the Government in the High Court over the legality of swamp kauri exports.
The Far North Environmental Protection Society has applied for a judicial review of the way the Ministry of Primary Industries and the Customs Service administer the Forests Act.
President Fiona Furrell said the society believed items officials were allowing to leave the country, labelled as table tops and carvings, were illegal exports of ancient kauri logs that had been dug out of swamps.
She said the Auditor-General had made the point that defining a finished object, or legal export, was a matter for the courts - and that was where the matter was now headed.