"Sequestration has to be an actual and transparent thing. We can't be falsifying any aspect of it, and we can't be leaving parts out of that equation either" - Adam Forbes

Dr. Adam Forbes from Forbes Ecology joined me on the podcast this week me to have a chat about sequestration. Forbes is principally a forest ecologist specialising in native forestry and native forest restoration.

I asked him how can we accurately count net emissions on farm if sequestration is not accurately measured? He said" "you would need to understand what's being sequestered on a farm to understand the net position. So I can't really suggest how else that could be done.” So essentially if we can't measure on farm sequestration, then essentially it is impossible to measure or have a net on farm emission value.

Forbes says understanding the sequestration of vegetation, particularly native vegetation, on farms, is a major incentive for people to be improving management of native forests and regenerating forests. He see’s it as major opportunity to encourage and incentivise people to be managing native vegetation. Sequestration, he says, is a major opportunity for landowners to be incentivised for looking after their forests and the vegetation and the land and managing it so that there's biomass being stored.

The focus with the ETS is around additionality and achieving carbon storage imputation, that wouldn't have occurred without the ETS. So that's why there's a line in the sand at 1990, but one can certainly understand farmers not getting recognition for sequestration pre-1990 is contentious.

Forbes says if there was an incentive that was more holistic and rewarded, ecological integrity, ecological health, resilience, these sorts of things. He thinks that would lead to much more balanced outcomes. “But like I say, we have the ETS at the moment and that is sort of a square peg in a round hole to my mind, in terms of an incentive for a forestation, but it's what we currently have and the trick is to make it fair and equitable.”

I asked him; If we can't recognize sequestration, then how on earth can we find a net emissions number? He said;  “I agree this has to be kept simple. I think sequestration has to be an actual and transparent thing. We can't be falsifying any aspect of it, and we can't be leaving parts out of that equation either. I think that the best thing we can do is have a complete, accurate sort of accounting of sequestration. And if it means that there's sequestration happening on farms that farmers aren't currently being recognised for, that's obviously a problem right, because we're not going to have a complete picture of that cycle.”

The recommendation from the Climate Change Commission is that the non-ETS sequestration included in the He Waka Eke Noa proposal could receive recognition through a separate system, but would it be implemented before 2025? For an accurate picture of farmers on farm net emissions, which is what this conversation should only be about, total on-farm sequestration must be recognised and calculated from 2025, otherwise there are no net on farm emissions because half of the equation is missing, it’s that simple. 

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Angus Kebbell is the Producer at Tailwind Media. You can contact him here.