A major report about the increasing and rapid conversion from farms to forestry should serve as a major wake-up call for the Government, Federated Farmers say.
The study found that, under current policy settings, New Zealand will continue to see millions of hectares of productive farmland plastered in plantation pine trees.
“It may have been published as a report, but it reads more like a horror story for Kiwi farmers and rural communities,” says Federated Farmers meat and wool chair Toby Williams.
“Planting pine trees as far as the eye can see may help to reduce emissions or improve water quality, but somebody has to ask the question: at what cost?
“It will come at the expense of rural communities, food production, the economy, and our native biodiversity. There simply has to be a better way.”
The ‘Why Pines?’ report, released by the Our Land and Water National Science Challenge, shows meeting current freshwater bottom lines will require widespread land use change from farming to forestry.
“One of the studies found that, even if there was no carbon price, one-fifth of sheep and beef country would still need to be converted to pine forest to meet freshwater goals,” Williams says.
“This must be of huge concern to the Government, who scrapped the failed He Waka Eke Noa pricing programme because it was going to have the exact same effect.”
Fixing New Zealand’s freshwater rules and rethinking ETS forestry settings were in Federated Farmers’ list of policy priorities for the new Government to restore farmer confidence.
“While the Government has done lots of good things to restore farmer confidence, unfortunately, the Labour Government’s unworkable freshwater bottom lines remain on the books,” Williams says.
“Federated Farmers have consistently called for those rules to be scrapped, with a new focus to go on replacing the broken RMA system.
“Under the current system, every time a farmer tries to do something different on their land they’re met with red tape and expensive consenting costs.
“Our current environmental policy framework is completely broken. The Government needs to work at pace to urgently repeal unworkable freshwater bottom lines and replace the RMA.”
Federated Farmers, New Zealand’s leading independent rural advocacy organisation, has established a news and insights partnership with AgriHQ, the country’s leading rural publisher, to give the farmers of New Zealand a more informed, united and stronger voice. Federated Farmers news and commentary appears each week in its own section of the Farmers Weekly print edition and online.
