by Manu Caddie
Re: Thwarting choice, trashing climate targets — June 16 column.
Six facts and one opinion:
1. The Climate Change Commission and others have shown that if the current rate of conversion from pasture to plantation continues, we will have an excess of sequestration and a low carbon price that will make the precious plantations worth a fraction of what investors expect, and encourage polluters to keep pumping out greenhouse gases while even more land is converted to pine plantations.
2. Removing pine from the Permanent Forest category of the Emissions Trading Scheme will slow the conversion process and incentivise diverse indigenous forest restoration under the Permanent Forest category. Diverse indigenous forest is by definition the best option for enhancing biodiversity, not pine plantations or pasture.
3. If local government is to be enabled to control where pine plantations are allowed, councils should also be enabled to control where bare pasture is allowed. Overlay 3A was the first attempt to address inappropriate land use in this region and didn’t get anywhere near far enough, as Dr Mike Marden’s survey of erosion-prone land treatment in Tairāwhiti since 1960 showed in his study published last year.
4. Offsetting is falling out of favour internationally and the rules are changing. Companies claiming net zero in Europe can no longer do so if they rely on offsetting. Monocropped exotic plantations are not permitted under Forest Stewardship Council international rules unless they are the only option and all other options have been exhausted.
5. Protecting existing indigenous forest and restoring it to land that has been cleared for farming are both expensive exercises — that create a lot of employment. Converting land that has been planted in pines to diverse native forest is even more difficult and expensive. No evidence exists on how to do it successfully, especially on steep, erosion-prone land in remote areas.
6. New Zealand has made commitments with other countries to reach an emissions reduction target by 2030 that is now impossible to achieve. The government will need to spend between
$3 billion and $30bn on offshore credits that don’t exist or will be too expensive to find within that eye-watering budget.
7. Taxpayer funds otherwise destined for offshore plantations should instead be spent on paying for current indigenous forest to increase its sequestration rate — like what is happening in the Raukumara via pest control — and on afforestation of permanent indigenous forest on poor-quality farmland. The funds can pay landowners a rental in perpetuity for retiring their least productive land at a rate above what they can make off it from marginal grazing.
