The recently released 'Deforestation survey 2012' showed that 62,000 hectares of forest will be, or have been, chopped down between 2008 and 2020. The survey shows that 86 percent of these areas will be converted to dairy farms.
An amendment to the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) in 2012 allowed for landowners to cut down forests and plant replacement forests elsewhere. The Emissions Trading Scheme is meant to discourage these kinds of moves by encouraging landowners to plant replacement forests elsewhere. However the survey states that "No respondents for the 2012 survey intend using offset planting. There is a clear preference to meet deforestation liabilities by purchasing units rather than using offset planting."
Earlier this year Carbon News reported that hundreds of thousands of hectares of pre-1990 plantation forest could be cleared or converted to post-1989 forest because the carbon obligation associated with clearance had fallen from $20,000 a hectare two years ago to $200 a hectare today.
The report also states that the low price of Emission Trading Units are not enough of an incentive to keep forestry plots operating:
"The survey was carried out at a time when the carbon price was in the range $2/NZU to $3/NZU. The price of CERs and ERUs was even lower - by 13 December 2012 the Westpac sell price was $0.87 for Green CERs and $0.47 for ERUs compared to $2.55 for NZUs. At prices in this range the deforestation liability is not a deterrent to land conversion.
If carbon prices were to increase above about $10 there is likely to be a reduced rate of future deforestation."
