Forestry Minister, Stuart Nash, has confirmed the government’s policy of planting “the right tree in the right place for the right reasons” to promote the long-term sustainability of the primary sector, noting it “makes growing forests, rather than raising sheep and beef, more attractive to many local and overseas investors.” He also recognises the dangers of large tracts of productive land being sold for forestry, because of the impact on rural communities and the potentially appalling environmental legacy if the forests are not harvested.
He says the NZ Forestry Service, Treasury, Ministry for the Environment and (unspecified) Cabinet Ministers are working right now on the appropriateness of the special forestry test which was introduced by the Overseas Investment Office Amendment Act (2018). Treasury has been leading a review of the effect of the Act since mid-last year and is due to report to Ministers by later this year.
The Treasury review will assess the amended Act’s effectiveness in achieving the original policy intent to facilitate sales to foreign investors and whether it is in alignment with other government objectives or work programmes; but it “will not consider whether carbon farming (permanent forestry) should be able to begin to use the special forestry test, nor will it inquire into the appropriateness of applications to convert farmland to forestry using that test…” Hopefully the relevant Ministers will realise the harmful impact of the fast increasing carbon price, now nearly at $80, on farmland conversions, even if this is outside the scope of the review.
Ministers involved in this exercise in addition to Nash are presumably David Parker, James Shaw and Damien O’Connor, none of whom has publicly spoken on the uncontrolled conversion of pastoral land to forestry. The silence of Parker and Shaw is not surprising, given the assurances presented by the latter to COP26 about New Zealand’s commitment to methane reduction, but as Minister of Agriculture O’Connor should be willing to stand up for sheep and beef farming.
National spokesperson Barbara Kuriger states “Incentivising companies to buy up our productive farmland and lock it up semi-permanently or even permanently in a monoculture, so other companies can buy carbon credits, is short-sighted and is leading to perverse outcomes, losing good farmland, damaging local communities, having potentially harmful effects on biodiversity, and fundamentally does nothing to encourage other industries to adapt.” She encourages farmers to attend the HWEN consultation process which proposes incentivising native tree planting on farm.
ACT’s agricultural spokesperson, Mark Cameron, argues the ETS needs replacing, a viewpoint also firmly held by Sam McIvor, CEO of B+LNZ, and reinforced by Kerry Worsnop, farmer and Gisborne District Councillor. She says the “ETS is a monster” which allows indiscriminate planting of trees so carbon emitters can generate credits to underpin their claims of carbon neutrality; she also told me of an approach to a Maori incorporation by an overseas investor with $200 million to invest in forestry conversion land on the East Coast. This type of investment is compounded by the fact New Zealand is the only country to allow 100% offsetting of carbon credits against emissions, compared with 20% or lower in other countries.
While B+LNZ welcomed the review of the OIO fast track for forestry investment, McIvor said that this was just tinkering around the edges as foreign investors only accounted for around 25% of sheep and beef farm sales into forestry. B+LNZ’s key priority remained getting limits on forestry offsets under the ETS. This was not part of what Minister Nash recently announced, which was very disappointing, and B+LNZ would continue to push for it.
McIvor also said farmers should be granted the same incentives to plant native trees which sequester carbon for much longer than exotics. Cameron believes farms here sequester as much greenhouse gas as they emit, and he has asked the Minister and MPI to look at the inconsistency of a measurement approach which only recognises on side of the equation, while National believes more research into measurement of natives’ sequestration is needed
Worsnop says the dangers of legislation allowing farm to forestry conversions unhindered are unambiguous, but the politicians have shut their eyes to the implications, and she questions their will to change. Hopefully Minister Nash means what he says and will be able to persuade his ministerial colleagues to make overdue and sensible changes to the OIO. It is highly unlikely this discussion will include a decision to review the ETS.
International opinion is beginning to question the moral hazard of carbon offsets because they are used by carbon emitters to provide false assurances that we don’t need to change the way we live. The Guardian’s George Monbiot recently wrote an opinion piece which claims carbon offsetting is actually accelerating environmental collapse, because for instance oil and energy corporations continue to prospect for fossil fuels while applying carbon credits to claim carbon neutrality.
This dubious activity results in a carbon land grab by corporate emitters which Oxfam estimates will require an area greater than five times the size of India or the total farmland on the planet, much of it belonging to indigenous populations. This land grab is known as ‘carbon colonialism’, reflecting its similarity to past colonialism which seized whole countries to gain control of their natural resources.
This topic is far more complicated than can be addressed by kneejerk political responses targeted at generating favourable headlines to satisfy the global competition to be more environmentally virtuous than other countries. I sincerely hope our government moves beyond the simplistic solution of planting one billion trees and takes steps to protect the rural sector’s ability to produce good food.
Current schedule and saleyard prices are available in the right-hand menu of the Rural section of this website.
P2 Steer
Select chart tabs
26 Comments
There is less land in plantation forestry than there was 20 years ago. The Government of the day did not feel the need to intervene in deforestation and subsequent dairy land conversion despite the detrimental environmental effects on waterways and greenhouse gas emissions. A lot of the land conversion was even commissioned by a State Owned Enterprise. Why should the Government intervene now? The Government's financial liabilities under the Paris Agreement will be even higher if carbon offsetting does not occur. The underlying problem is really that pastoral grazing on remote, steep, and highly erodible land is not economically or environmentally sustainable.
The underlying problem is really that forestry on remote, steep, and highly erodible land is not economically or environmentally sustainable either - unless it is exclusively propped up by carbon mandates. Hence the decline in plantation area this century. Why should the Government intervene now? If governments sign up to stupid agreements they win stupid prizes. Tough luck if you are a young farmer.
"Not a single G20 country is in line with the Paris Agreement on climate, analysis shows
Of particular concern are Australia, Brazil, Indonesia Mexico, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore, Switzerland and Vietnam"
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/09/15/world/climate-pledges-insufficient-c…
The underlying problem is that pastoral grazing on remote, steep and highly erodible land is not economically or environmentally sustainable either - unless we are prepared to accept massive soil and environmental degradation.
The forest loss was all to dairy farming on easy land just like sheep and beef lost huge areas to this - far more than to any trees. Its called the market.
When we had an open market plantation forestry was in a decline. Now we have weapons grade intervention in the market by the all knowing climate omnipotent governments. Don't give me this 'it's the market' BS. It is a market where some carbon is more equal than others, and the low carbon footprint sheep and beef is hammered for it.
•Adaptive multi-paddock grazing can sequester large amounts of soil C.
•Emissions from the grazing system were offset completely by soil C sequestration.
•Soil C sequestration from well-managed grazing may help to mitigate climate change.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308521X17310338?via…
Then run erosion prevention schemes and reward the farmers who do so - rather than handing billions to pine tree planters in a futile attempt to change the climate to the little ice age. At least have a level playing field for all parties who are retaining top soils and sequestering carbon.
Fun Fact:
New Zealand's Southern Alps are being pushed up by tectonic forces "shockingly" faster than any mountains in the world, in new international findings that have wide ramifications for the Earth's entire carbon cycle.
New measurements from the steep mountain tops have shown that rock can transform into soil more than twice as fast as previously believed possible, according to a major study published in leading journal Science.
profile
The soil carbon sequestration paper you link to is for the conditions in the Mid-West USA which are very different to NZ.
Soil carbon issues are complex. Some NZ pastoral soils gain carbon, some are in a steady balance, and some are losing carbon. It is a two-edged sword. And in relation to sorting out agriculture's contribution to climate issues, soil carbon is not the main game.
KeithW
There are heaps of economically viable, environmentally sustainable farms on steep highly erodible land. I think you are just using those words without thinking about what they would actually mean if they were true. The best example I can think of would be the dry loess hills in Marlborough, they seem to be making great progress in actually increasing the productivity, which would be impossible if what you said was true. Interestingly enough the council has even declared large chunks of it a visual amenity landscape and seriously restricted the planting of any kind of trees.
Young farmer eh . If its not dairy , a livestock farm has not got the return to go to the ban k with to buy it . The ETS may actually give them enough profit to buy a farm . (the unknown is how the banks will view it . and there is no need to plant the whole farm in trees.
Im sorry but this is a plie of dr***e.
We still don't even have the forest area we had 20 years ago. Commercial forestry produces the same amount of jobs as farming - BDO report on East Coast, unpublished Beef and Lamb report on South Otago - wonder why that didnt get published!!
and by the way the jobs pay on average 30% more than agriculture - same accross both reports.
GDP on east Coast from forestry 300% higher per ha than farming from BDO report - cant these people read
If we plant 380,000 ha of new exotic forest its a drop in the bucket. Farming will still dominant by miles.
Farmers are planting flat out anyway - they are the biggest group - if you take out the ETS there will be a very large group of very unhappy farmers plus the carbon price will have to go to $300 per tonne to get change to meet goals - then all the hobbits will be whinging and whining about fuel costs.
Yes plant natives but farmers have the land and in effect they don't want to change in these areas - climate change dosn't exist according to them anyway. Under 1BT there was a mountain of money for farmers to plant on farm natives and exotics - in these regions the uptake was beyond pathetic so don't say you haven't been offerred it before.
Sure look at overseas buyers, permanent radiata but don't be a bunch of closed minded hobbits thinking the shire will go on the same way forever - remember the hobbit is a fairytale.
East Coast harvesting is very risky - just ask any of the loggers parked up for the past three months paying interest on $10's of millions of rusting gear. Pretty hard for a skilled machine operator to sit on his hands waiting for the market to come right - I guess they can always fall back on farm labour.
Key point here for me is that we are kicking the can down the road on emissions and Govt are using market-based interventions that are clumsy, unpredictable, and likely to lead to perverse outcomes. The 100% offset allowance is simply ridiculous - has no scientific credibility at all.
Govt would be better off buying the land and employing people over the long-term to get the natives established (and get some solar farms on those north facing slopes). They could pay themselves some carbon credits!!
I dont disagree that trees are only a bridge to serious change - if we dont use this time to do it its wasted. Im happy to see tree planting for the ETS limited to the CCC area on exotics and no more.
Im happy to see the carbon price go up and up - lots of my friends are now looking at Hybrid cars etc as the price has altered their mid. Nothing else will.
The reason we have an ETS is that they originally proposed a carbon tax to do what you sugguest - who moaned and complained and wanted a market based tool - Farmers!!!
They have got what they asked for.
Fair points all. I am not against the booming ETS price for the same reasons. However, investors now own 25% of all NZ carbon credits and the profits those investors will make will be paid for by kiwis when they pay their energy bills and fill up their cars. Seems madness.
My username might indicate my own bias. I got into Pines as an investment, not as an industry I worked in.
In the last 2 weeks the carbon price increments have (on paper) made me more money than 2 weeks of my work ever did, but that is just an aside.
I chose forestry as a means to try to counter the ills that were happening on a global scale to the planet. Every tree harvested here in theory helps to reduce the likelihood of another tree being stripped from the Amazon. In the process we stabilize our soils, clean our waterways, reduce flooding, bring in jobs, clean the atmosphere, produce building materials and make some cash into the bargain. It was obvious to me more than 45 years ago at school that we were messing things up. Burning fossil fuels and deforestation... it's not something that can be continued indefinitely. Both are counter to the environment. Both are finite.
Anyway, to flip one of the rhetorics around: How about the right farm, with the right stock/crop, in the right place.
When travelling to check on my forests in Gisborne and the Waikato/Taranaki region it was immediately apparent how grossly unsuitable those lands were to ever being deforested and converted into pasture in the first place.
Just because our predecessors knew nothing more than Slash, Burn, Graze doesn't mean it was the right choice, or that it was the only option to continue with.
All this is frittering around the edges when the ETS train smash and the govt CO2 targets need to be booted out. Only the bare minimum CO2 reduction is needed to keep the EU happy from a trading perspective. I don't see the Nats making much change either. They'll only be too happy to flog off the family silver to overseas investment interests. ACT are likely to sell the family silver, brass and anything else they can lay their hands on. Come to think of it they'd sell their respective mothers if they got the right price.
"Grassroots Carbon is far from alone in the United States in aiming to promote regenerative agriculture via payments for sequestering greenhouse gases. The federal Department of Agriculture recently announced it will spend $1 billion on projects designed to encourage the curbing of emissions and the storage of carbon. Other private-sector efforts include the Bayer Carbon Initiative, Indigo, Nori, Nutrien, and TruCarbon. But Grassroots Carbon says the $200,000 it distributed last month represents the first time that American ranchers have been paid for earning carbon credits."
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/grassroots-carbon-regenerati…
We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment.
Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.