Marcus Buddo: Sheep or pine trees - the battle for the backcountry

Financial incentives in land use are changing due to New Zealand's efforts to combat climate change. Photo / Supplied

"More farms for forestry: Six farms sold to foreign buyers for forestry conversion", RNZ, May 3.

This was recently in the headlines, and yes, many more like this are going to follow. This is because the financial incentives in land use are changing due to New Zealand's efforts to combat climate change.

To be clear, climate change is an emergency that needs to be addressed urgently and decisively. To do this, we must reduce the emissions we produce that contribute to global warming. New Zealand has an ambitious plan to do this, by focusing on two complementary goals: offsetting emissions and reducing emissions.

Offsetting emissions focuses on pulling carbon dioxide (the main greenhouse gas) from the atmosphere and storing it in trees. Reducing emissions focuses on industries and modes of transport that release CO2 and finding ways these sectors can reduce their emissions. This plan to combat climate change will bring with it many changes, some painful.

For example, the Climate Change Commission suggests 380,000ha of trees need to be planted to meet our offsetting goals. These trees will be planted mainly on land that is now used for farming. It is undeniable this will have a huge impact on our rural communities, as their jobs, schools, and way of life either change or disappear. Urban areas will be impacted too, as flow-on effects take their toll on farming-related industries such as meat processing, putting jobs and export cheques at risk.

While these 380,000ha of trees constitute just a small portion of our total national land area, most of these trees will be planted in very specific places, and not spread around the country evenly. At most risk of huge land-use change are our East Coast areas from Tairawhiti to the Wairarapa and including our Hastings district.

The main method the Government is using to promote land-use change to offset carbon and reduce emissions is the Emissions Trading Scheme. Here, tree growers can earn credits for capturing carbon in their trees, and emitters can buy these credits to offset their emissions. With these carbon credits more than doubling in price within the past 12 months, you can earn more per hectare by planting pine trees and selling carbon credits (at least in the short term), than farming can with sheep and beef.

This is concerning, because it will accelerate conversion of productive farmland to forestry. The present rules may lead to permanent forestry that will never be harvested, but is planted for carbon credits and left.

These forests would provide no jobs directly, or in downstream processing, to replace the sheep and beef jobs they eliminate. Unfortunately, while native forests have a very long lifespan and biodiversity benefits, they do not produce carbon credits quickly and are thus not economically viable. Pinus radiata has a massive income from carbon credits, but research suggests they live to only 100 years.

There is the potential that in 100 years' time we (or rather our grandchildren) are faced with an unparalleled ecological disaster as these mono-culture pine forests reach the end of their lives, with fire, pest, and slash issues.

Therefore, it is good to see Forestry Minister Stuart Nash's commitment to taking exotic trees (like pinus radiata) out of the permanent forest category in the Emissions Trading Scheme. This will vastly reduce the likelihood of "plant and walk away" forests that could lead to a loss of jobs first, and then massive fire risks or ecological issues.

It would be better if the minister also put in place a robust exemption scheme, so that those who wish to use pines as a cover crop on non-productive land could do so, or that farmers could use exotic trees as erosion control and benefit from earning carbon.

As a country, we need to be fully committed to fighting climate change as one of the biggest priorities of our time. We also need to ensure the wellbeing of our communities, their people, and livelihoods. Part of this is protecting our incredibly productive land.

Marcus Buddo is a member of the Hastings District Rural Community Board and is involved in both farming and forestry.