August 3, 2025 • 18 mins
The Government is likely to pass a law banning farm-to-forest conversions to protect productive farmland for food production.
It’ll mean a restriction on planting forests on high-quality land – and it’s a response to the previous government’s Emissions Reduction Plan.
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has emphasised the need to protect productive farmland, maintain food security, and ensure that forestry expansion doesn’t come at the expense of agriculture and rural livelihoods.
But, have we placed too much importance on planting trees anyway? And should we be focusing our efforts elsewhere?
Today on The Front Page, University of Canterbury emeritus Professor David Norton is with us to break down what all this actually means – and whether we’ll be able to meet our ambitious climate targets.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Kyota.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. The government's
likely to pass a law banning farm to forest conversions
to protect productive farmland for food production. It'll mean a
restriction on planting forests on high quality land and it's
(00:29):
a response to the previous government's emissions reduction plan. Agriculture
Minister Todd McLay has emphasized the need to protect productive farmland,
maintain food security and ensure that forestry expansion doesn't come
at the expense of agriculture and rural livelihoods. But have
(00:50):
we placed too much importance on planting trees anyway? And
should we be focusing on other efforts elsewhere? Today on
the front page of Canterbury Emeritus Professor David Norton is
with us to break down what this all actually means
and whether we'll be able to meet our ambitious climate targets.
(01:14):
First off, David, can you tell us what farm to
forest conversions actually are?
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Yep. But it's a good question because it's often quite
confusing and essentially a company that could be a New
Zealand company, it could be an overseas company purchases a farm,
typically a sheet and beef farm, and they plant the
whole farm up in fast growing exotic trees, usually pineous radiata,
for carbon sequestration purposes.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
And so what is carbon farming? Is that the planting
of the pine to offset carbon emissions.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Yeah, it's not to offset carbon emission. So carbon farming
is basically the process of planting up a farm in
fast growing exotic trees with the objective to seque to
carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and to earn money
from doing that. And yeah, it is called offsetting because
somebody who is producing emissions, a company that's using petrol, diesel, whatever,
(02:14):
can then buy those credits to offset their emissions.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
So what's the main evidence for the government wanting to
restrict farm to forestry conversions.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Yeah, so the reason why they brought the restrictions in
is because of concerns within the farming sector that good
quality farmland was being taken out of farming and put
into carbon forests. The difficulty with carbon forests is that
they are a permanent land used they have to be
there forever, because once you've drawn that carbon down from
the atmosphere, it needs to stay in those trees and perpetuity,
(02:48):
so it rules out any opportunity to go back into
farming on that land again. So I think the biggest
concern that drove this change was that desire to restrict
that that sort of locking up a potential farmland for
the future. In the proposal, it restricts it that you
can't do it on land News classes one to five,
(03:08):
and there's a limit on land News Class six as well.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Well. That leads me on to my next question, Actually,
how do we determine what is high, medium and low
quality land?
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Yeah, so there's a national system that ranks all land
in New Zealand on its productivity essentially, and so the
most productive land would be land that's used to say cereal,
you know, wheat growing and other crops horticulture, right through
to the least productive land, which would be land that is,
you know, might only graze one or two stock units
per hecta. That's very very low productivity. And so the
(03:42):
idea of the regulations was to limit the conversion of
high quality or highly productive farmland to pine trees and
restrict that largely at lower productivity hill country, steeper hill
country farmland.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
That doesn't do anything to alleviate the fears of beef
and sheep far as though, does it.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
It shifts it more to the least productive end of
the spectrum. So the better downlands lower hill country lands
has certainly got much more restrictions on it. Yes, so
it does alleviate it to some degree, but there is
still a lot of concern in the farming community. I understand.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yeah, because I saw in October last year, we saw
the closure of alliance groups meat processing plant and Timoru,
affecting about six hundred jobs, and fed farmers at that
time pointed to land use changes, including the conversions to forestry,
as a contributing factor. Obviously the forestry industry disputed this.
But in a situation like this, do the environmental gains
(04:40):
outweigh I guess the jobs in rural communities.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
From my perspective anomen ecologist, that there are no environmental
gains in doing this. I actually think carbon farming is
a flawed process. It's basically a small group of people
trying to make a lot of money in a short
period of time with zero consideration for the future.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yeah, because you've made a good point before, as well,
to my understand my very basic understanding is that when
you come in and plant these pine forests, it's like
one hundred year commitment. You have to be doing it consistently,
cutting them down regrowing for it to be any good.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Right, Okay, Two, there's really good question, and there's two
important points in there. A lot of these farm to
forest conversions are not being managed for sustainable timber supply.
They're simply being planted for carbon and then basically the
owners walk away and leave them. That's very different from
a production plantation forest that's been managed on sustainable rotation
(05:46):
to produce timber every thirty twenty five thirty years on
an ongoing basis. So most of these farm to forest
conversions are simply being planted up. They sequest a carbon
for twenty thirty forty years, and then they have to
be in the ground because that carbon has been sequested.
They're not being managed into the future, and they impose
massive economic and environmental liabilities on us as we move
(06:10):
into future generations.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Why aren't they planting native species? Why is it always
pine and exotic species.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
That's a great question, and the reason is that the
whole emissions trading scheme that this is all working through
is set up to make pines the favored outcome, and
the incentives are all completely twisted and counter against native forests.
And I mean, I think it's really important to recognize
that people are getting rich, making a lot of money,
(06:41):
getting rich over a short period of time from carbon credits.
They get their credits and they can forget about that forest.
But someone's got to make sure that carbon stays in
the ground in the future. And if the investors are
taking their money and gone, then it's going to be
future generations in New Zealand that are responsible for looking
after that carbon that's been stored there, because it's supposed
to be storedly. But at the same time, we know
(07:02):
that these pine forests are not adapted to the New
Zealand environment. They won't maintain themselves, they will collapse, They
will be sources of diseases, of dare of pa species.
And you know, we saw what happened in cyclone Gabriel,
We saw what happened to Nelson Tasman a few weeks ago.
You know, these forests are imposing massive environmental liabilities on us.
(07:23):
And what we need is we need diverse native forests
established across the landscape into woven into farming systems, not
replacing farming, but into woven's farming systems. Unfortunately, the ETS
is stacked against that. It just doesn't make it possible
at the moment. This is what the Parliamentary Commissioner for
the Environment said and his report recently. You know, the
(07:43):
whole system is wrong. It's set up against natives.
Speaker 4 (07:49):
So what you're saying is we are going to have
higher emissions leading up to twenty thirty because of your
governments policies.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
We're going to have that accurate?
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Nor what is that?
Speaker 4 (07:58):
Is that accurate? What is that is that accurate? Will
New Zealand have higher emissions than we would have under
the previous government? Under your government in the period leading
to twenty thirty?
Speaker 3 (08:09):
What is accurate?
Speaker 5 (08:10):
It is to say that the missions profile, the plan
that we have put in place will enable us to
meet our budgets for the period ending to it.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
It's not the question I asked though, But the question
I asked is under your government's policies, will our emissions
leading up to twenty thirty be higher than they would
under the previous government.
Speaker 5 (08:26):
Technically, in the region of about one point five mega
tons of point of difference by the end, So thirty.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Does our emissions reduction plan rely too heavily on forestry.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Absolutely. What we're doing is we're basically saying, keep producing emissions,
you can offset them. But actually what we need to
be doing is cutting our emissions, and the emissions reduction
plan isn't doing that, is just relying on fast growing
trees to push the problem out into the future, not
addressing the missions reductions at all.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
So the coalition brought in the removal of agriculture from
the ETS, and that was welcomed by farmers, criticized by environmentalists.
What do you make of this move?
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Yeah, I mean I think what we need is we
need to separate out methane, which is what livestock are
producing from all the other all Carton dixide, which is
from petrol and diesel and all that stuff. And I
think we need to have a separate biogenic system where
farmers can offset their own emissions in their livestock on farm.
Methane behaves very differently to CO two and that should
(09:35):
be done in one system, and then there should be
a separate system that is focused on reducing our overall
CO two emissions from hydrocarbons, and the two should be
separated out and dealt with quite separately.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
What alternatives are there and it should we be focusing
on more?
Speaker 3 (09:59):
Yeah, I think what we should be doing in New
Zealand from my perspective is quite simply. We should have
a standalone biogenic methane system for farmers and they can
plant woodlots on their farmers, they can use native vegetation
to offset their methane productions. We need to have genuine
tools in place that guarantee we reduce emissions. We're not
(10:19):
reducing emissions. We've got to bring our emissions down less
fossil fuels, and we need to be building landscape resilience,
and that by building landscape resilience, by planting diverse native forests,
by establishing more native wetlands, we can sequest a draw
carbon down from the atmosphere. But we can also make
sure that we don't get the damage we've got in
cyclone Gabriel and damage we've got in Nelson and other
(10:40):
parts of New Zealand. I'm involved with a project called
rec Cloak and papatuar Nuku which pure advantage are not
for profit has been developing which is aiming to restore
two million hectas of native forest and wetland across New Zealand,
interwoven into our primary production landscapes and not replacing farming,
but part of farming. Are rewarded for looking after native
(11:02):
forests and establishing new native forests for all of those benefits,
you know, cultural biodiversity, resilience, carbon draw down and so forth.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Well that kind of sounds like a win win, doesn't it.
Why aren't we making So if I was a dairy farmer, say,
is there a way that so I've got my fifty cows?
Say I obviously have never visited a dairy farm, so
I don't know how many cows there are, But say
I've got fifty, probably.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
A few more than fifty.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Can I then measure how much methane that they're producing
and then be like, right, it's this much. I need
to come up with a way to offset that on
my land, say with native forests and stuff, and then
kind of try and balance it out myself. Could I
essentially do that?
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Absolutely? Look, the science is very very easy to use.
I mean, we know how much methanea cow producers, so
you could do that definitely, and I must say some
of the innovative dairy farmers are actually putting that information
out there in the public. They are acknowledging how much
they produce them. You can do the math, and you
may not be able to do it on your land
because your dairy farm might be too small, but you
(12:07):
could work with says sheet and beef farmer and you
could do it in a collaborative way.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Why don't we make farmers do that?
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Then it's a good question. The politics. Yeah, I don't
have the answer to that one.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
I wouldn't mind my tax money going, you know, giving
a few bob to farmers to create native farmlands.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Well, I think, you know, I mean, I think there
are lots of avenues that we could fund it through.
I mean, there's a lot of interest internationally in high
quality carbon and biodiversity credits, So people would be really interested,
I think in investing in New Zealand. We're a stable democracy,
We're a reliable country for that sort of work. But
farmers themselves, I mean, you know, they will at some
(12:51):
point need to offset their methane production so that the
incentive is for them to invest into their own land.
But it's building resilience in their land, and it's helping
make their land more stable. It's got other benefits out
of it. I work with farmers dairy and she can
be farmers helping them designeration programs for their farms so
they can bring back native forest. I mean, there are
(13:11):
really great people out there doing this already. We just
need the national policy signals of a place to make
this reality. And I think for that we need to
acknowledge that we are being impacted by climate change. We
need to acknowledge that we need to have a national
resilience plan, of which, you know, putting native forests back
into landscapes as part of farming systems is a really
(13:33):
sustainable long term outcome. Pine trees a short term They're
not doing anything for the future. Native forest, native wetlands
are bringing all these other values and bi diversity who
we are as New Zealanders, you know, all these other
values back into our landscapes.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Of the two hundred odd countries in the world today,
it looks like we are the only one it's carbon neutral.
Actually that's not quite accurate. Batone is not carbon neutral.
We're doone is carbon negative. Our entire country generates two
(14:11):
point two million tons of carbon dioxide, but a forest,
they see question more than three times at amount. So
we are a net carbon zinc for more than four
million tons of carbon dioxide each year.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
What about if we look overseas, are there any other
countries that are focusing you know, not as much on forestry,
I suppose, but are there any good projects that we
should be really keeping an eye on.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
There's a range of different initiatives being taken in different
countries and different ways of incentidvising and encouraging people to
get involved in these sorts of projects. But I actually
believe that New Zealand has the opportunity to show other countries.
So turning it around, we have the opportunity to show
other countries how we can do this sort of stuff.
We're a small country, we're innovative. We just need to
(15:01):
get out of this mindset at the moment of just
focusing on today and actually think about the future. And
we've got huge credibility, scientific background in this stuff. We
know how to do it. We just need the political
will behind that to support it.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Do you think farming and forestry voices are equally represented?
Speaker 3 (15:21):
It's interesting, you know, I hate to think what's going
on behind the closed doors in Wellington and who's influencing what.
What's not being represented is the voice of the environment,
and that's my real concern is that the environment has
not been listened to. I think I work with a
lot of farmers, and my impression is that farmers are
really interested in looking after the land, are really interested
(15:43):
in a sustainable outcome. They get the impact that climate
change has on their businesses on their land, and they're
in it for the long term. Farmers are in it
for the long term, and I think we just need
to have the right incentives there to help a system
with even those sorts of outcomes that I've talked about.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
I mean, the Climate Change Commission last month warned that
while we're making progress and emissions are on track to
meet the first budget that's twenty twenty two to twenty
twenty five, we still need to urgently do more work.
At the rate we're going. Do you think that we're
going to meet our Paris climate commitments?
Speaker 3 (16:23):
No? No, from everything I've seen, we're not. We're still
consuming too much, We're still using too much, We're still
we're still living in today. We're not thinking about tomorrow,
and I think we're struggling, and I think relying on
offsetting with short lived pine trees is just a massive mistake.
It's just pushing the problem off.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Has this latest move set us back a bit?
Speaker 3 (16:43):
I think it's just simply carrying us down a I
think a Dedan street, and I think we need to,
like Simon Upton said the Parliamentary Commission of the Environment said,
we need to radically overhaul the ets. We need to
shift fast growing exotics into the BID methane system, and
we need to start putting in place an approach that's
(17:05):
based around using native forest of long term enduring carbon
sequestration is going to be there forever of all of
the other benefits for the landscape, for people, for bid diversity,
But the government doesn't seem to be interested in that.
And that's a real tragedy, I think, because the people
that are going to suffer are going to be the
next generation and the one after that and so on.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Thanks for joining us, David, You're welcome, Thanks for inviting me.
That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
at enzidherld dot co dot MZ. The Front Page is
produced by Ethan Sells and Richard Martin, who is also
(17:46):
our editor. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front Page
on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune
in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.
Kyota.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. The government's
likely to pass a law banning farm to forest conversions
to protect productive farmland for food production. It'll mean a
restriction on planting forests on high quality land and it's
(00:29):
a response to the previous government's emissions reduction plan. Agriculture
Minister Todd McLay has emphasized the need to protect productive farmland,
maintain food security and ensure that forestry expansion doesn't come
at the expense of agriculture and rural livelihoods. But have
(00:50):
we placed too much importance on planting trees anyway? And
should we be focusing on other efforts elsewhere? Today on
the front page of Canterbury Emeritus Professor David Norton is
with us to break down what this all actually means
and whether we'll be able to meet our ambitious climate targets.
(01:14):
First off, David, can you tell us what farm to
forest conversions actually are?
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Yep. But it's a good question because it's often quite
confusing and essentially a company that could be a New
Zealand company, it could be an overseas company purchases a farm,
typically a sheet and beef farm, and they plant the
whole farm up in fast growing exotic trees, usually pineous radiata,
for carbon sequestration purposes.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
And so what is carbon farming? Is that the planting
of the pine to offset carbon emissions.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Yeah, it's not to offset carbon emission. So carbon farming
is basically the process of planting up a farm in
fast growing exotic trees with the objective to seque to
carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and to earn money
from doing that. And yeah, it is called offsetting because
somebody who is producing emissions, a company that's using petrol, diesel, whatever,
(02:14):
can then buy those credits to offset their emissions.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
So what's the main evidence for the government wanting to
restrict farm to forestry conversions.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Yeah, so the reason why they brought the restrictions in
is because of concerns within the farming sector that good
quality farmland was being taken out of farming and put
into carbon forests. The difficulty with carbon forests is that
they are a permanent land used they have to be
there forever, because once you've drawn that carbon down from
the atmosphere, it needs to stay in those trees and perpetuity,
(02:48):
so it rules out any opportunity to go back into
farming on that land again. So I think the biggest
concern that drove this change was that desire to restrict
that that sort of locking up a potential farmland for
the future. In the proposal, it restricts it that you
can't do it on land News classes one to five,
(03:08):
and there's a limit on land News Class six as well.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Well. That leads me on to my next question, Actually,
how do we determine what is high, medium and low
quality land?
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Yeah, so there's a national system that ranks all land
in New Zealand on its productivity essentially, and so the
most productive land would be land that's used to say cereal,
you know, wheat growing and other crops horticulture, right through
to the least productive land, which would be land that is,
you know, might only graze one or two stock units
per hecta. That's very very low productivity. And so the
(03:42):
idea of the regulations was to limit the conversion of
high quality or highly productive farmland to pine trees and
restrict that largely at lower productivity hill country, steeper hill
country farmland.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
That doesn't do anything to alleviate the fears of beef
and sheep far as though, does it.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
It shifts it more to the least productive end of
the spectrum. So the better downlands lower hill country lands
has certainly got much more restrictions on it. Yes, so
it does alleviate it to some degree, but there is
still a lot of concern in the farming community. I understand.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yeah, because I saw in October last year, we saw
the closure of alliance groups meat processing plant and Timoru,
affecting about six hundred jobs, and fed farmers at that
time pointed to land use changes, including the conversions to forestry,
as a contributing factor. Obviously the forestry industry disputed this.
But in a situation like this, do the environmental gains
(04:40):
outweigh I guess the jobs in rural communities.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
From my perspective anomen ecologist, that there are no environmental
gains in doing this. I actually think carbon farming is
a flawed process. It's basically a small group of people
trying to make a lot of money in a short
period of time with zero consideration for the future.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yeah, because you've made a good point before, as well,
to my understand my very basic understanding is that when
you come in and plant these pine forests, it's like
one hundred year commitment. You have to be doing it consistently,
cutting them down regrowing for it to be any good.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Right, Okay, Two, there's really good question, and there's two
important points in there. A lot of these farm to
forest conversions are not being managed for sustainable timber supply.
They're simply being planted for carbon and then basically the
owners walk away and leave them. That's very different from
a production plantation forest that's been managed on sustainable rotation
(05:46):
to produce timber every thirty twenty five thirty years on
an ongoing basis. So most of these farm to forest
conversions are simply being planted up. They sequest a carbon
for twenty thirty forty years, and then they have to
be in the ground because that carbon has been sequested.
They're not being managed into the future, and they impose
massive economic and environmental liabilities on us as we move
(06:10):
into future generations.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Why aren't they planting native species? Why is it always
pine and exotic species.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
That's a great question, and the reason is that the
whole emissions trading scheme that this is all working through
is set up to make pines the favored outcome, and
the incentives are all completely twisted and counter against native forests.
And I mean, I think it's really important to recognize
that people are getting rich, making a lot of money,
(06:41):
getting rich over a short period of time from carbon credits.
They get their credits and they can forget about that forest.
But someone's got to make sure that carbon stays in
the ground in the future. And if the investors are
taking their money and gone, then it's going to be
future generations in New Zealand that are responsible for looking
after that carbon that's been stored there, because it's supposed
to be storedly. But at the same time, we know
(07:02):
that these pine forests are not adapted to the New
Zealand environment. They won't maintain themselves, they will collapse, They
will be sources of diseases, of dare of pa species.
And you know, we saw what happened in cyclone Gabriel,
We saw what happened to Nelson Tasman a few weeks ago.
You know, these forests are imposing massive environmental liabilities on us.
(07:23):
And what we need is we need diverse native forests
established across the landscape into woven into farming systems, not
replacing farming, but into woven's farming systems. Unfortunately, the ETS
is stacked against that. It just doesn't make it possible
at the moment. This is what the Parliamentary Commissioner for
the Environment said and his report recently. You know, the
(07:43):
whole system is wrong. It's set up against natives.
Speaker 4 (07:49):
So what you're saying is we are going to have
higher emissions leading up to twenty thirty because of your
governments policies.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
We're going to have that accurate?
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Nor what is that?
Speaker 4 (07:58):
Is that accurate? What is that is that accurate? Will
New Zealand have higher emissions than we would have under
the previous government? Under your government in the period leading
to twenty thirty?
Speaker 3 (08:09):
What is accurate?
Speaker 5 (08:10):
It is to say that the missions profile, the plan
that we have put in place will enable us to
meet our budgets for the period ending to it.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
It's not the question I asked though, But the question
I asked is under your government's policies, will our emissions
leading up to twenty thirty be higher than they would
under the previous government.
Speaker 5 (08:26):
Technically, in the region of about one point five mega
tons of point of difference by the end, So thirty.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Does our emissions reduction plan rely too heavily on forestry.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Absolutely. What we're doing is we're basically saying, keep producing emissions,
you can offset them. But actually what we need to
be doing is cutting our emissions, and the emissions reduction
plan isn't doing that, is just relying on fast growing
trees to push the problem out into the future, not
addressing the missions reductions at all.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
So the coalition brought in the removal of agriculture from
the ETS, and that was welcomed by farmers, criticized by environmentalists.
What do you make of this move?
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Yeah, I mean I think what we need is we
need to separate out methane, which is what livestock are
producing from all the other all Carton dixide, which is
from petrol and diesel and all that stuff. And I
think we need to have a separate biogenic system where
farmers can offset their own emissions in their livestock on farm.
Methane behaves very differently to CO two and that should
(09:35):
be done in one system, and then there should be
a separate system that is focused on reducing our overall
CO two emissions from hydrocarbons, and the two should be
separated out and dealt with quite separately.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
What alternatives are there and it should we be focusing
on more?
Speaker 3 (09:59):
Yeah, I think what we should be doing in New
Zealand from my perspective is quite simply. We should have
a standalone biogenic methane system for farmers and they can
plant woodlots on their farmers, they can use native vegetation
to offset their methane productions. We need to have genuine
tools in place that guarantee we reduce emissions. We're not
(10:19):
reducing emissions. We've got to bring our emissions down less
fossil fuels, and we need to be building landscape resilience,
and that by building landscape resilience, by planting diverse native forests,
by establishing more native wetlands, we can sequest a draw
carbon down from the atmosphere. But we can also make
sure that we don't get the damage we've got in
cyclone Gabriel and damage we've got in Nelson and other
(10:40):
parts of New Zealand. I'm involved with a project called
rec Cloak and papatuar Nuku which pure advantage are not
for profit has been developing which is aiming to restore
two million hectas of native forest and wetland across New Zealand,
interwoven into our primary production landscapes and not replacing farming,
but part of farming. Are rewarded for looking after native
(11:02):
forests and establishing new native forests for all of those benefits,
you know, cultural biodiversity, resilience, carbon draw down and so forth.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Well that kind of sounds like a win win, doesn't it.
Why aren't we making So if I was a dairy farmer, say,
is there a way that so I've got my fifty cows?
Say I obviously have never visited a dairy farm, so
I don't know how many cows there are, But say
I've got fifty, probably.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
A few more than fifty.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Can I then measure how much methane that they're producing
and then be like, right, it's this much. I need
to come up with a way to offset that on
my land, say with native forests and stuff, and then
kind of try and balance it out myself. Could I
essentially do that?
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Absolutely? Look, the science is very very easy to use.
I mean, we know how much methanea cow producers, so
you could do that definitely, and I must say some
of the innovative dairy farmers are actually putting that information
out there in the public. They are acknowledging how much
they produce them. You can do the math, and you
may not be able to do it on your land
because your dairy farm might be too small, but you
(12:07):
could work with says sheet and beef farmer and you
could do it in a collaborative way.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Why don't we make farmers do that?
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Then it's a good question. The politics. Yeah, I don't
have the answer to that one.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
I wouldn't mind my tax money going, you know, giving
a few bob to farmers to create native farmlands.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Well, I think, you know, I mean, I think there
are lots of avenues that we could fund it through.
I mean, there's a lot of interest internationally in high
quality carbon and biodiversity credits, So people would be really interested,
I think in investing in New Zealand. We're a stable democracy,
We're a reliable country for that sort of work. But
farmers themselves, I mean, you know, they will at some
(12:51):
point need to offset their methane production so that the
incentive is for them to invest into their own land.
But it's building resilience in their land, and it's helping
make their land more stable. It's got other benefits out
of it. I work with farmers dairy and she can
be farmers helping them designeration programs for their farms so
they can bring back native forest. I mean, there are
(13:11):
really great people out there doing this already. We just
need the national policy signals of a place to make
this reality. And I think for that we need to
acknowledge that we are being impacted by climate change. We
need to acknowledge that we need to have a national
resilience plan, of which, you know, putting native forests back
into landscapes as part of farming systems is a really
(13:33):
sustainable long term outcome. Pine trees a short term They're
not doing anything for the future. Native forest, native wetlands
are bringing all these other values and bi diversity who
we are as New Zealanders, you know, all these other
values back into our landscapes.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Of the two hundred odd countries in the world today,
it looks like we are the only one it's carbon neutral.
Actually that's not quite accurate. Batone is not carbon neutral.
We're doone is carbon negative. Our entire country generates two
(14:11):
point two million tons of carbon dioxide, but a forest,
they see question more than three times at amount. So
we are a net carbon zinc for more than four
million tons of carbon dioxide each year.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
What about if we look overseas, are there any other
countries that are focusing you know, not as much on forestry,
I suppose, but are there any good projects that we
should be really keeping an eye on.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
There's a range of different initiatives being taken in different
countries and different ways of incentidvising and encouraging people to
get involved in these sorts of projects. But I actually
believe that New Zealand has the opportunity to show other countries.
So turning it around, we have the opportunity to show
other countries how we can do this sort of stuff.
We're a small country, we're innovative. We just need to
(15:01):
get out of this mindset at the moment of just
focusing on today and actually think about the future. And
we've got huge credibility, scientific background in this stuff. We
know how to do it. We just need the political
will behind that to support it.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Do you think farming and forestry voices are equally represented?
Speaker 3 (15:21):
It's interesting, you know, I hate to think what's going
on behind the closed doors in Wellington and who's influencing what.
What's not being represented is the voice of the environment,
and that's my real concern is that the environment has
not been listened to. I think I work with a
lot of farmers, and my impression is that farmers are
really interested in looking after the land, are really interested
(15:43):
in a sustainable outcome. They get the impact that climate
change has on their businesses on their land, and they're
in it for the long term. Farmers are in it
for the long term, and I think we just need
to have the right incentives there to help a system
with even those sorts of outcomes that I've talked about.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
I mean, the Climate Change Commission last month warned that
while we're making progress and emissions are on track to
meet the first budget that's twenty twenty two to twenty
twenty five, we still need to urgently do more work.
At the rate we're going. Do you think that we're
going to meet our Paris climate commitments?
Speaker 3 (16:23):
No? No, from everything I've seen, we're not. We're still
consuming too much, We're still using too much, We're still
we're still living in today. We're not thinking about tomorrow,
and I think we're struggling, and I think relying on
offsetting with short lived pine trees is just a massive mistake.
It's just pushing the problem off.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Has this latest move set us back a bit?
Speaker 3 (16:43):
I think it's just simply carrying us down a I
think a Dedan street, and I think we need to,
like Simon Upton said the Parliamentary Commission of the Environment said,
we need to radically overhaul the ets. We need to
shift fast growing exotics into the BID methane system, and
we need to start putting in place an approach that's
(17:05):
based around using native forest of long term enduring carbon
sequestration is going to be there forever of all of
the other benefits for the landscape, for people, for bid diversity,
But the government doesn't seem to be interested in that.
And that's a real tragedy, I think, because the people
that are going to suffer are going to be the
next generation and the one after that and so on.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Thanks for joining us, David, You're welcome, Thanks for inviting me.
That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
at enzidherld dot co dot MZ. The Front Page is
produced by Ethan Sells and Richard Martin, who is also
(17:46):
our editor. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front Page
on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune
in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.
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