The recommendation will inevitably be viewed through the lens of climate policy, but there is a broader question that deserves equal attention.
What kind of rural landscape do we want New Zealand to have in the decades ahead?
The ETS has undoubtedly influenced land-use decisions. In many parts of the country, planting radiata pine for carbon credits has become financially attractive. For some landowners, particularly on marginal country, carbon forestry has offered certainty where traditional farming has struggled.
That is an understandable economic decision.
However, when financial incentives begin reshaping entire landscapes, it is appropriate to ask whether the wider consequences have been fully considered.
A productive farm contributes much more than meat, wool, milk or timber. It supports rural communities, local schools, transport services, contractors, veterinarians, machinery suppliers and small businesses. Active farming landscapes also provide opportunities for recreation, hunting, fishing and public access that can change significantly when land use changes.
Forests also have an important role. Well-managed production forests provide timber, employment and erosion control. Native forests deliver biodiversity, water quality benefits and habitat for indigenous wildlife. The issue is not whether forestry belongs in New Zealand.
It clearly does.
The question is whether the current incentive structure is encouraging the right tree in the right place.
Large-scale conversion of productive farmland into permanent carbon forests raises legitimate questions that extend beyond climate policy. What happens to rural communities if farming families leave? How resilient is an economy that increasingly values carbon storage over food production? What balance should exist between commercial forestry, indigenous regeneration and productive agriculture?
These are land-use questions every bit as much as they are climate questions.
The Parliamentary Commissioner has argued that the ETS should primarily encourage genuine reductions in greenhouse gas emissions rather than allowing continued emissions to be offset indefinitely through new forest planting. Whether one agrees with that recommendation or not, it raises an important policy issue: should New Zealand’s emissions framework also determine the future shape of its rural landscape?
Environmental policy inevitably creates incentives. Those incentives influence investment, land values and long-term management decisions. Sometimes they produce exactly the intended outcome. Sometimes they produce consequences that were never fully anticipated.
The challenge for policymakers is ensuring that one environmental objective is not achieved at the unintended expense of others.
New Zealand has always depended on a diverse rural landscape. Productive farms, commercial forests, native bush, wetlands and conservation land all contribute to the country’s economy, environment and outdoor recreation opportunities. Public policy should recognise the value of each and avoid creating incentives that disproportionately favour one land use simply because it attracts the greatest financial return under current rules.
The real question is not whether carbon should be valued.
It is whether public policy is encouraging the landscapes we want future generations to inherit.
That is a debate worth having, regardless of where one stands on climate policy.
Andi Cocroft is the chairman for Council of Outdoor Recreation Associations of New Zealand (CORANZ). Where this article was sourced.
The ETS has undoubtedly influenced land-use decisions. In many parts of the country, planting radiata pine for carbon credits has become financially attractive. For some landowners, particularly on marginal country, carbon forestry has offered certainty where traditional farming has struggled.
That is an understandable economic decision.
However, when financial incentives begin reshaping entire landscapes, it is appropriate to ask whether the wider consequences have been fully considered.
A productive farm contributes much more than meat, wool, milk or timber. It supports rural communities, local schools, transport services, contractors, veterinarians, machinery suppliers and small businesses. Active farming landscapes also provide opportunities for recreation, hunting, fishing and public access that can change significantly when land use changes.
Forests also have an important role. Well-managed production forests provide timber, employment and erosion control. Native forests deliver biodiversity, water quality benefits and habitat for indigenous wildlife. The issue is not whether forestry belongs in New Zealand.
It clearly does.
The question is whether the current incentive structure is encouraging the right tree in the right place.
Large-scale conversion of productive farmland into permanent carbon forests raises legitimate questions that extend beyond climate policy. What happens to rural communities if farming families leave? How resilient is an economy that increasingly values carbon storage over food production? What balance should exist between commercial forestry, indigenous regeneration and productive agriculture?
These are land-use questions every bit as much as they are climate questions.
The Parliamentary Commissioner has argued that the ETS should primarily encourage genuine reductions in greenhouse gas emissions rather than allowing continued emissions to be offset indefinitely through new forest planting. Whether one agrees with that recommendation or not, it raises an important policy issue: should New Zealand’s emissions framework also determine the future shape of its rural landscape?
Environmental policy inevitably creates incentives. Those incentives influence investment, land values and long-term management decisions. Sometimes they produce exactly the intended outcome. Sometimes they produce consequences that were never fully anticipated.
The challenge for policymakers is ensuring that one environmental objective is not achieved at the unintended expense of others.
New Zealand has always depended on a diverse rural landscape. Productive farms, commercial forests, native bush, wetlands and conservation land all contribute to the country’s economy, environment and outdoor recreation opportunities. Public policy should recognise the value of each and avoid creating incentives that disproportionately favour one land use simply because it attracts the greatest financial return under current rules.
The real question is not whether carbon should be valued.
It is whether public policy is encouraging the landscapes we want future generations to inherit.
That is a debate worth having, regardless of where one stands on climate policy.
Andi Cocroft is the chairman for Council of Outdoor Recreation Associations of New Zealand (CORANZ). Where this article was sourced.
2 comments:
One cannot do other than fully agree with this comment by Andi Cocroft. The acceleration of the blanket conversion of productive farm land to forestry, probably radiata, unmanaged and even, possibly, not targeted for harvest, planted for carbon credits is a corruption of our picturesque, productive and socially vibrant farm landscapes. At least the government has moved to frustrate this effectively irreversible landscape change, but why it took as long as it did is difficult to understand. And anyway, have it done enough?
But it is not just the destruction of the social infrastructure and negative landscape implications; there are other issues, such as fire hazardation, ground and surface water disruptions, haven for pests, and, if up-wind from urban areas, pollen pollution. (Has anyone thought of that?)
The original purpose for the introduction of carbon accreditation – penalizing the emitter and rewarding the sequester – was worthy, but we soon saw the unintended consequences. This major landscape conversion is now giving forestry a bad name. That’s regrettable. Our plantation forests provide almost all our timber requirements, as well as earning a substantial portion of our overseas earnings. No country comes close to making such a claim.
(I have an interest to declare here. I have 15 hectares registered through the ETS, but nearly all the trees are deciduous at relatively wide spacing, managed (subject to silviculture) and under which productive and grazed pasture is maintained. The trees are protected in perpetuity. This has no relationship to the blanket afforestation with a single species that is the cause of the writers and the Parliamentary Commissioner’s concerns.)
I was astonished by the original Paris agreement. And then by the pine forestry decision. With fast looming maori -colonists conflict and a culture of utu, vast areas of easily torched pines owned by both parties seem a ridiculous risk.
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