Forestry Consultation Process Descends Into Farce

Friday 23 February 2007

Govt Forestry Consultation Process “Descends Into Farce”

The Government’s consultation process on its controversial forestry land use policy has descended into farce with today’s release of yet another glossy so-called consultation document, this time on a proposed tradable permits scheme, the Kyoto Forestry Association (KFA) said today.

“What sort of incompetent Government releases yet another glossy booklet for discussion with forest owners, right in the middle of a consultation process with those very same forest owners on another glossy booklet?” KFA spokesman Roger Dickie asked.

“Jim Anderton and David Parker have clearly been panicked by the unanimous hostility throughout the forestry industry to their December proposals, and bashed out new ideas as a distraction.

“It is an insult to the more than 700 forest owners who turned out to consultation meetings this week,” Mr Dickie said. “And what are the hundreds of forest owners planning to attend meetings over the next fortnight meant to take more seriously – the December proposals or the February effort?”

In any case, Mr Dickie said a tradable permits scheme would not be acceptable to the 30,000 ordinary New Zealanders and forestry companies who were having their carbon credits stolen by the Government.

“This is just another tax idea with a different name,” he said. “The Government appears to want to socialise the profits from forestry but privatise the losses. The credits foresters have earned will still be confiscated but they will be expected to front up with cash for a permit if they want to deforest.”

Mr Dickie said it was a “gross insult” that Mr Anderton was telling those who would have to buy the permits that they should have built this into their planning because of government statements back in 2002 – but that those who earned carbon credits by planting trees through the 1990s were “bloody fools” to have relied on much firmer commitments made by officials through that decade that they would gain financially from sequestering carbon.

“According to Mr Anderton and his office, forest owners are ‘bloody fools’ one day if we listen to government officials but the next day we should be hanging off their every word before making investment decisions.”

Mr Dickie was referring to comments made by Mr Anderton’s office to Saturday’s Gisborne Herald that: "In 1999, prior to Labour coming to government, the then minister for the environment Simon Upton was telling people that it was his preference that the carbon credits would be devolved to forest owners — but it was never government policy. From our perspective, anyone who took that sort of assurance as a reason to get into forestry was bloody foolish."

Mr Dickie said he was pleased however that Mr Anderton was finally admitting that 20% of forest owners were planning on converting their land on harvest because of his Government’s policies and that Mr Parker had acknowledged that deforestation risked costing taxpayers $651 million.

“If the Government would just implement the forestry industry’s six-point plan to get planting underway again, he would not have to worry about that risk.”

The six-point plan was agreed last year by the New Zealand Forest Owners Association (NZFOA), the New Zealand Farm Forestry Association (NZFFA), the Federation of Maori Authorities (FOMA) and KFA, after work with Government officials.

The plan included recognition of the industry’s property rights. All political parties are being asked to endorse the plan for their election manifestos for the 2008 election.

Attached: Background Information
NZ Forestry Industry’s Six-Point Plan to Get Planting Underway Again
NZ Forest Plantings 1990-2005

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

The New Zealand Forestry Industry’s Six-Point Plan

1. Remove the inequitable, retrospective ‘deforestation cap’.

2. Allow land owners with Kyoto-qualifying forests (forests planted from 1990) – as well as those replanting non-Kyoto forests after harvest – to financially benefit from the value of the carbon their forests remove from the atmosphere.

3. Introduce broad-based carbon charges, ensuring that all emitters of greenhouse gases face the same opportunity costs.

4. Ensure that New Zealand’s Kyoto policies have the best long-term outcomes for New Zealand, even if they don’t exactly mirror current Kyoto rules.

5. Develop a regime which puts a value on the environmental attributes of forestry, thereby encouraging investment in the sector.

6. Act immediately.

New Zealand Forest Plantings 1990-2005

Year Hectares
1990 16,000
1991 15,000
1992 50,000
1993 62,000
1994 98,000
1995 74,000
1996 84,000
1997 64,000
1998 51,000
1999 40,000
2000 34,000
2001 30,000
2002 22,000
2003 20,000
2004 11,000
2005 6,000

Source: http://www.climatechange.govt.nz/resources/reports/projected-balance-emissions-jun06/html/fig-1.html

ENDS

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