Latest news with #ClimateChangeResponse
Otago Daily Times
02-07-2025
- Politics
- Otago Daily Times
Farm forestry ban too late to help: advocate
The farm-to-forest ban passed its first reading last week but a Southland Federated Farmers executive says its too late, the damage has been done and is continuing. Executive member and farmer Dean Rabbidge said since the ban's announcement on December 4, there has been a rush to convert arable land into forests. "If anything, we've only seen an acceleration of it since December 4 with people knowing that this is their last chance," he said. The sheep, beef and dairy farmer said after pulling pines out of his own property he has learned the damage the conifers do to the soil. "It's taking a lot of work to get it back into productive land through fertiliser and seed and stuff," he said. Pine needles themselves are quite toxic, he said, and do not let anything else grow. He said the farms that have been converted into forestry would have had soil that was at the optimum level for animal health and pasture production. "[The soil] has been cared for and looked after for maximum food production values, and now we're just planting it in pine trees," he said. The ban, or Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Scheme — Forestry Conversions) Amendment Bill, will include exemptions. After the first reading, Minister for Agriculture Todd McClay said investors that were able to prove intent to afforest between January 2021 and December 4 would be exempt from the ban. This exemption, which was part of the December 4 announcement, was clarified by the minister. Mr McClay said that the combination of buying land and ordering of trees prior to December 4 would be an example of proof of a qualifying investment. He said each of these actions alone would not. This exemption has been a source of confusion for concerned farmers who have said the grey area of "evidence of intent" opened up a loophole that has been exploited. Mr Rabbidge said the grey area remains and his organisation will continue to hold government ministers to account over this issue. "There's still been some very, very questionable land purchases go on recently under the guise of, hey, we had seedlings ordered — that was their intent to plant," he said. "We're still going to keep the pressure on the government to make sure that all the loopholes are closed." The Wyndham farmer said the rapid conversion is visible to those living rurally, but it will take a while for urban residents to recognise the affect. "It's far too late, but people are finally waking up to the damage that forestry, both production and carbon, is doing to the rural sector," he said. "It's not until the urban areas feel the effects of it that it's going to be far too late."
Otago Daily Times
01-07-2025
- Politics
- Otago Daily Times
Claim too late for farm-to-forestry ban
Dean Rabbidge. Photo: ODT files The farm-to-forest ban passed its first reading last week but a Southland Federated Farmers executive says it is too late, the damage has been done and is continuing. Executive member and farmer Dean Rabbidge said since the ban's announcement on December 4, there had been a rush to convert arable land into forests. "If anything, we've only seen an acceleration of it since December 4 with people knowing that this is their last chance," he said. The sheep, beef and dairy farmer said after pulling pines out of his own property he had realised the damage the conifers did to the soil. "It's taking a lot of work to get it back into productive land through fertiliser and seed and stuff," he said. Pine needles were quite toxic and did not let anything else grow, he said. The farms that had been converted to forestry would have had soil that was at the optimum level for animal health and pasture production, he said. "[The soil] has been cared for and looked after for maximum food production values, and now we're just planting it in pine trees." The ban, or the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Scheme — Forestry Conversions) Amendment Bill, will include exemptions. After the first reading, Minister for Agriculture Todd McClay said investors who were able to prove intent to afforest between January 2021 and December 4 would be exempt from the ban. This exemption, which was part of the December 4 announcement, was clarified by the minister. Mr McClay said the combination of buying land and ordering of trees prior to December 4 would be an example of proof of a qualifying investment. He said each of these actions alone would not. This exemption has been a source of confusion for concerned farmers, who have said the grey area of "evidence of intent" opened up a loophole that has been exploited. Mr Rabbidge said the grey area remained and his organisation would continue to hold government ministers to account over this issue. "There's still been some very, very questionable land purchases go on recently under the guise of, hey, we had seedlings ordered — that was their intent to plant. "We're still going to keep the pressure on the government to make sure that all the loopholes are closed." The Wyndham farmer said the rapid conversion was visible to those living rurally, but it would take a while for urban residents to recognise the effect. "It's far too late, but people are finally waking up to the damage that forestry, both production and carbon, is doing to the rural sector."
Otago Daily Times
27-06-2025
- Politics
- Otago Daily Times
The Bill and the trees
Something which often surprises those whose only glimpse of Parliament is a few seconds on the TV news of MPs shouting at each other, is that most politicians — just like most people — actually get along fairly well. In my experience, very few MPs are malevolent figures: they genuinely are in the job to make New Zealand a better place (as they see things) and it is not at all unusual to see friendships made across the aisle. Parliament is a workplace, albeit a very unusual one, and like most workers MPs just want to get on with their colleagues and get the job done. Hence the genuine expressions of shock and grief in the House on Thursday when the news of the death of Te Pāti Māori MP Takutai Tarsh Kemp was announced. She is the second MP to have died during this term: both she and the Green MP Fa'anānā Efeso Collins were young, first-term MPs with their abundant potential unfulfilled. The unexpected adjournment was a reminder that while politics is proposition and opposition, those advancing their ideas are real people with genuine human concerns. Before Parliament came to a shuddering halt the House did get through the first reading of the snappily entitled Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Scheme — Forestry Conversion) Amendment Bill, one of those rare pieces of legislation where Labour and National — mostly — see eye to eye. In 2002 the then Labour government passed the well-intentioned Climate Change Response Act 2002 which — among many initiatives — allowed farmers who swapped their entire property over from tending cows and sheep to tending trees, to register for the emissions trading scheme. Farmers, like most businesspeople, are practical. Once it eventuated that there was more money in lumber than livestock, pines started proliferating and productive farmland stopped generating food. New Zealand First Taieri list MP Mark Patterson offered the Bill his full-throated endorsement. Advancing this law change is part of the National-NZ First coalition agreement and is an issue close to Mr Patterson's heart: he has seen many properties in the vicinity of his Lawrence farm given over to trees. "This is the most consequential Bill to come before this House in this term of Parliament for our rural communities," he said. "Whole-of-farm conversions of some of our most productive land, if left unchecked, are in the process of shuttering large swathes of rural New Zealand. Action is both necessary and overdue." Beef and sheep farms were doing decent business at the moment, but the current price for carbon credits meant trees were far more profitable. What's more, on current trends trees were about to become competitive with dairy farming — the backbone of New Zealand's economy. "I know: I planted some myself; I've taken advantage of this scheme," he confessed. "Why would I not? It would be looking a gift horse in the mouth." Mr Patterson said he came not to damn forestry — a $6 billion export sector in its own right — but to encourage the right trees being planted in the right place. "It does create opportunities to integrate forestry in with sheep and beef farming primarily, in a mosaic-type approach, and it can help cash-flow farm succession. It's not all down side, by any means, for our rural communities." Dunedin Labour MP Rachel Brooking said while Labour thought it was slightly ambitious to hope this Bill could solve the woes of rural communities, we could all (well, apart from the Greens and Te Pāti Māori, who voted no) agree there was a problem. "We think that some more fixing will be needed in addition to this Bill," she said. "We heard the Hon Mark Patterson speak before about a piece of farmland that he owns where he planted some trees because that is what the economics were telling him to do. "He didn't have to do it, but it made good financial sense, and people will follow the incentives." Ms Brooking noted the issue was not trees per se, but how to disincentivise carbon forests on good food-producing farmland. "These are pine trees that are planted to stay put. They might be harvested once, but then they're going to stay in the ground. "It's different from plantation forestry whereby foresters are out there planting the trees and then planning to cut them down." While broadly backing the stated intent of the Bill, Ms Brooking took issue — as the opposition has with other pieces of legislation — with the short time the environment select committee will have to consider the legislation. "The report back is only August 20, which is not much time, but it is better than all stages under urgency, which, of course, this government likes to do." Not quite peace in our time, but it was a start.
Scoop
25-06-2025
- Politics
- Scoop
Have Your Say On The Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Scheme—Forestry Conversion) Amendment Bill
The Environment Committee has called for submissions on the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Scheme—Forestry Conversion) Amendment Bill. Currently, the Emissions Trading Scheme creates an incentive to convert land used for pastoral agriculture to production and permanent forestry. The bill would limit whole-farm conversions to exotic forestry with the aim of protecting productive land for agricultural purposes. Tell the Environment Committee what you think Make a submission on the bill by 9.00am on Monday, 07 July 2025 For more details about the bill:
Scoop
24-06-2025
- Business
- Scoop
Farm-To-Forest Ban Passes First Reading
The Government has taken a major step towards protecting food production by ending the large-scale conversion of productive farmland into pine plantations, with the first reading of the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Scheme—Forestry Conversions) Amendment Bill receiving unanimous support in Parliament last night. 'This Bill is about protecting our most valuable land that grows food for export and sustains rural communities,' Agriculture and Forestry Minister Todd McClay says. 'For too long, ETS incentives have driven the wrong outcomes for our rural sector.' 'Once farms are planted in trees as a result of carbon credits we lose the ability to produce the high-quality safe food that consumers demand – and we lose rural jobs, export earnings, and the families that go with them. Today we are putting a stop to the harm that this has done to rural New Zealand.' The Bill will: Prevent exotic forests from entering the ETS on LUC 1–5 land (New Zealand's most productive soil); Limit new ETS registrations on LUC 6 land to 15,000 hectares per year, allocated by ballot; Allow up to 25 per cent of a farm to go into the ETS, preserving landowner choice while ending full-farm conversions; Protect eligible Māori-owned land, and provide time-limited exemptions for pre-announced investments. The Bill includes temporary exemptions where an investor can provide evidence of a qualifying forestry investment between 1 January 2021 and 4 December 2024 . For instance, the purchase of land and ordering of trees prior to 4 December 2024 would be an example of proof of a qualifying investment, whilst each of these actions alone would not. 'The last Government sat back while 300,000 hectares of farmland were sold off for carbon credits. That short-sighted policy puts ideology ahead of long-term food security. We're reversing that damage.' The new settings will take effect from 4 December 2024, with the law coming fully into force in October 2025.
