A Beef + Lamb NZ (B+LNZ) commissioned report by the Auckland University of Technology (AUT) claims the area of carbon-sequestering native bush and vegetation on sheep and beef farms meant many were or close to being carbon neutral.
Responding to questions from Farmers Weekly, a spokesperson for the Ministry for the Environment (MfE) acknowledged that while significant volumes of carbon were sequestered on sheep and beef farms, the AUT report overestimated the actual amount.
“Our conclusion is that the AUT report’s estimate of carbon sequestration on sheep and beef farms of between 10.4 to 19.7 million tonnes of carbon (CO2) per annum, overestimates the sequestration,” the spokesperson said.
“It does not include carbon emissions from harvesting of exotic forests or deforestation, and it assumes all areas of natural forests and scrub vegetation on sheep and beef farms are in a vigorous growth phase,” he said.
B+LNZ environment policy manager Dylan Muggeridge says the organisation stood by “this credible and robust research.”
It was also designed to show that sequestration was occurring on farms for which farmers were not being recognised or credited for.
“We wanted it to start a conversation about farmers being able to get recognised for this sequestration,” Muggeridge said.
“While MPI and the MfE may have some questions about the numbers, what is encouraging is their recognition that there is significant sequestration happening and that we will be working together on a process to get better recognition of this through He Waka Eke Noa and other mechanisms,” he said.
He Waka Eke Noa has been established by primary sector bodies, Maori, the Government and other partners, to find ways to reduce and address greenhouse gas emissions from the primary sector.
The MfE spokesperson says for greater accuracy of sequestration rates, it needed to account for carbon emissions from forest harvesting, scrub clearance and deforestation and reflect areas of vegetation that have reached mature growth.
Such calculations also need to look at the impact on carbon sequestration from farm management such as grazing, and environmental factors such as altitude or temperatures limiting growth.
“It is also important to note that sequestration rates differ between species and change over time due to harvesting cycles in exotic forests, and as new vegetation is established or is cleared,” he said.
The MfE spokesperson says indigenous forest can be registered in the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), provided it meets the scheme’s definition of forest land.
That definition requires forests must be established after 1989 on land previously not forested, exceed 1ha in area with a forest canopy covering or growing to cover more than 30% of the ground and with trees reaching at least 5m in height when mature.
There is currently 32,285ha of indigenous forest registered in the ETS.
The spokesperson says the He Waka Eke Noa Primary Sector Climate Action Partnership is working to design a simple and cost-effective system to incentivise and expand on-farm carbon sequestration.
The aim is to formally recognise vegetation and elements that sequester carbon but do not currently qualify under the ETS.
The He Waka Eke Noa steering group is also looking at some design details for pricing greenhouse gas emissions from farms in 2025.
It will present its recommendations in the middle of next year.
