Money in Hawke's Bay hills if trees are in the right place

Erosion in Hawke's Bay - not a pleasant sight. Photo / Supplied

The Hawke's Bay Regional Council is proposing an ambitious tree planting solution to protect and strengthen as much as 250,000 hectares of what it calls "highly-erodable and vulnerable" land.

In a trial named "Right Tree Right Place", the Council will offer a loan and other funding mechanisms to landowners to plant trees on the land, with economic and environmental benefits, from manuka, honey, timber and horticulture options with the greatest potential to deliver a return and offset loan repayments.

Cr Will Foley, a former Federated Farmers Hawke's Bay provincial chairman, says it has economic and environmental benefits for the farming community, local economy and wider community.

"As a farmer, this makes completes sense," he says. "Many farmers are planting and growing trees already in vulnerable areas, but we need this to happen on a much bigger scale to ensure our land is resilient to a changing climate."

"For pastoral farmers, this programme will help us meet freshwater regulatory targets, provide a diversified income stream, help combat erosion, store carbon, and strengthen biodiversity. It's a no-brainer really," he says.

The Council plans to pilot the new programme on up to five farms to understand the details involved in set-up costs, partnership and delivery options.

It wants to partner with private landowners, investors and forestry companies to offer the tree-planting solution, and the programme has already attracted significant private investor interest.

"This programme is essentially about supporting pastoral farmers to strengthen their farm's environmental performance, profitability and resilience," he says.

Erosion is a natural process, however human activity has accelerated the scale and rate of erosion. Around 250,000 hectares of Hawke's Bay land is highly-erodible and vulnerable, according to the Council's modelling.

Foley says: "We are facing a significant erosion problem as a region and we must do something innovative now to address this in the face of increasingly destructive floods and droughts."

The Council says expansion of the scheme is possible if the trial is successful, and with it being a "region-wide transformational project," it prefers to fund the trial through returns from reserves. If successful, the development costs of the trial will be reimbursed to the Council's reserves.

Head to hbrc.govt.nz to have your say on the proposal.