The Governments’ review of the ETS is well overdue and it should go much further according to 50 Shades of Green.

Chairman, Andy Scott said the organisation supported the governments’ recent moves on foreign ownership of good farmland. It also supported a much-needed review of the ETS.

“We’re really pleased that the government listened to us about the free ride for foreign investors to buy good farmland through a special exemption and to plant pine trees that attract carbon,” Andy Scott said. “We were losing far too much good farmland to those overseas investors who effectively added nothing to the NZ economy other than an internal cost and doing nothing enduring for climate change.

“We now welcome the review of the ETS, especially as it applies to planting exotics and then leaving them to rot.

“Those forests will inevitably create major threats to our environment. They pose an increasing fire risk and an ecological and conservation disaster waiting to happen. An increase in pest infestation will also pose challenges for the environment and biodiversity loss.

We believe the answer to global warming is to address emissions at source. There’s no point in driving bigger cars and indulging in air travel and then trying to mitigate that by planting trees on food producing land. Changing behaviour is what is called for, not treating our hill country as the sacrificial lamb.

“Fifty Shades of Green continues to offer to work with the government to find a solution to our current problems,” Andy Scott said. “I’m pleased that they have realised the answer to climate change is not in blanket planting good farm land.”

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