29 February 2009
Seeking changes to the proposed Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) and to encourage the planting of more than 800,000 hectares of seriously eroding hill country land, some of New Zealand’s largest exporting companies have joined forces to launch the Flexible Land Use Alliance (FLUA).
The Alliance consisting of Blakely Pacific Ltd, Carter Holt Harvey Ltd, Fonterra Co-operate Group Ltd, Forest Enterprises Ltd, Landcorp Farming Ltd, the New Zealand Forest Owners Association Inc., PF Olsen Ltd and Wairakei Pastoral Ltd, says the proposal to impose massive retrospective liabilities on owners of land planted with trees prior to 1 January 1990, who want to convert their land, has devalued forest land, and had a chilling effect on confidence to plant new trees.
The Alliance says that the liabilities, previously thought to be around $13,000 per hectare are now feared to be much higher with a conservative long-term average likely to be around $20,000 per hectare. At the same time, fears of the retrospective liabilities are deterring the forestry industry and other land owners from planting the more than 800,000 hectares, saying the Government and Parliament should exclude forests planted before 1 January 1990 from the ETS.
A Forestry Offset Scheme, under which land owners could meet their liabilities for harvesting their land either by replanting that exact same land, or by planting the same area that is not currently in forestry, is a key part of the overall package sought by the Alliance.
Ministers Anderson and Parker in response have said the FLUA’s first preference to exclude all pre-1990 forests was a non-starter. “This is inconsistent with the Kyoto Protocol’s rules,” said Jim Anderton.
Climate Change Minister David Parker said: “It is not true that the Government can give effect to Kyoto by any means it choose, we have to live within the rules. Rules negotiated by over 100 countries will always involve compromise and if every country refused to make commitments that didn’t suit them then we would never reach agreement on anything”.
“It is an inescapable fact that our plantation forests hold carbon that will be lost to the atmosphere if the land is deforested so at the very least we need to do something to remedy this. As such we reject the view that any controls on deforestation are retrospective and therefore unfair – the controls are not on the past practice of planting a forest, they are on a future practice of changing land use. There is no liability for foresters who replant the same land after harvest.”
Jim Anderton said that it may seem pretty simple to cut down one forest and plant another one somewhere else, but, in climate terms, there is a period when we have lost carbon and it will take several decades to get it back.
“The Government is happy to relook at the issue, have the proposal evaluated and discuss it with stakeholders”, Jim Anderton said.
Mr Green said the FLUA appreciated that the Government had an open mind on the issue and was pleased to have the opportunity to be part of its ongoing policy development process.
If you would like to submit a news item to be considered for inclusion on Inwood Today, please email the text to: Australia, Jim Bowden, and all other countries to info@inwoodmag.com
All news on this site is compiled by Inwood Today and may be subject to international copyright.
News Archives
