Mangahauini on the East Coast - “The Government seems to have no plan for the hundreds of thousands of hectares of post-Bola pine that shouldn’t be harvested and is collapsing as it matures." - Manu Caddie. Photos / Mana Taiao Tairāwhiti
Mangahauini on the East Coast - “The Government seems to have no plan for the hundreds of thousands of hectares of post-Bola pine that shouldn’t be harvested and is collapsing as it matures." - Manu Caddie. Photos / Mana Taiao Tairāwhiti
Sustainable land use advocacy group Mana Taiao Tairāwhiti (MTT) has serious concerns about the Government’s emissions plan released yesterday.
MTT spokesman Manu Caddie said the Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP) identified some of the problems but presented no realistic solutions.
”Instead it seems keen to appease the pasture and pine industries rather than committing to anything that will see emissions reduce at the rate required.
“By going for a low-price approach, the country is no longer on course to meet the commitments the country has made in global agreements,” Caddie said.
“It relies on unsustainable land use in places like Tairāwhiti that will be an even bigger disaster for the region – people will not be able to live here and more properties and lives will be lost if pine is the policy being promoted, as this plan proposes.”
Caddie said the Government seemed happy to focus on avoiding conversion of high-value productive farmland, but that meant sacrificing low-value unproductive farmland (on steep, erosion-prone slopes) and increasing the destructive patterns of harvesting and whole plantations collapsing when pines were planted on erosion-prone land.
Mana Taiao Tairāwhiti spokesman Manu Caddie says they have "serious concerns" about the Government's Emissions Reduction Plan.
“While putting a moratorium on wholesale conversion of higher quality farmland, there are no limits proposed for class 7 and 8 land, which means most erosion-prone land will be targeted - and 88% of whenua Māori in Tairāwhiti is in the most erosion-prone classes 6 to 8.”
The Government acknowledged the value of permanent indigenous forests and risks of exotic plantations being put in the wrong places - and the risks being exacerbated by increasing storms and poor plantation management practices, he said.
“The Government seems to have no plan for the hundreds of thousands of hectares of post-Bola pine that shouldn’t be harvested and is collapsing as it matures.
“The ‘least-cost’ reductions policy seems like the only costs considered are those borne by the commercial sectors and not the costs borne by communities and the environment.
“The document acknowledges the problems of pine planted in the wrong place, but presents no options for addressing those issues - instead it seems committed to increasing incentives for this to continue and even accelerate,” Caddie said.
“The Government says it wants to reduce uncertainty by stopping the ETS review, but then instigated its own review and in this document introduces a heap more uncertainty by removing policies that would see real emissions reduce in favour of trying to plant our way to meeting international commitments.
“The document says there are many options for ‘incentives’ that the officials and agencies are exploring, with little information and no detail on what those are likely to be.
“And it acknowledges the right tree in the wrong place is problematic, but is really suggesting there are no alternatives to sacrificing regions like Tairāwhiti because those trees shouldn’t go on to ‘high value productive’ farmland.”
Caddie said the only environmentally sustainable option discussed was indigenous afforestation on conservation estate.
“But there is nothing known about the scale available and no details about how private investment will be encouraged to make that happen.”
