Forest Owners Association president Phil Taylor says given the central role forestry will continue to play for this country to meet its climate change obligations, and the role farmers can play in planting trees, it made sense to integrate the two.
“In the past we have had an integrated ministry, but then it mainly had a pastoral focus, with forestry going to an associate minister. With the right, positive minister, an integrated ministry would make sense,” he said.
While having had no indication yet what the Government may do, Taylor says Damien O’Connor has proven a sound minister for agriculture, and one who appreciated the links between farming and forestry.
Taylor says the challenges New Zealand faces in trying to reduce its carbon emissions have not diminished in the past three years, if anything they had increased and meeting the Paris Accord using tree planting was still the best short-term approach.
“Unless we plant more trees, we as a country will be required to spend more on carbon credits. This was central to Shane Jones wanting the one billion trees policy,” he said.
The industry’s concern was that with a swing to a centre-left government there may be some loss of momentum around the project, with more controls on forestry making the sector a “sacrificial lamb” to appeal to the pastoral sector.
“Leading up to the election there was a lot of talk about the need to control afforestation to deal with unfounded fears of a loss of pastoral land,” he said.
“This government will have to be really careful about the sights it sets. If it does not want forestry, it will pay for the carbon. You can’t have your cake and eat it.”
Taylor says while the publicity from groups like 50 Shades of Green was a concern to him, he was heartened by the interest farmers were showing in farm forestry.
“And it is not a case anymore of a farmer planting trees and seeing no income for 25 years. From year eight those trees can start to earn income in carbon credit value,” he said.
Increased extension and education were key areas foresters wanted to see the Government invest more in over coming months to help capitalise on the interest farmers have in planting.
“Talk to grassroots farmers and they are interested, but it is just outside their comfort zone and they want advice on putting the right trees in the right places,” he said.
“If there was one thing to appease the angst out there about forestry, it would be to get increased education among farmers.”
He also hoped there would not be interference on what sort of land trees could and could not be planted on.
“We hope it does not devolve to a regional council level. We have worked out a national policy statement on plantation forestry, where forestry is a permitted activity on all but the most erodible land, so the question is why should forestry be controlled versus pastoral farming?” he asked.
He believes many farmers would equally not wish to see their right to commit to forestry impeded by regional council involvement.
Wood Processors and Manufacturers Association chief executive Jon Tanner says at a trade level, whoever became minister for trade needed to double down on issues of processing subsidies and support offered by overseas governments to their processors.
Those subsidies had meant NZ’s raw logs were traded at a premium, making establishing processing here more expensive on a playing field far from level.
Tanner says Chinese demand pressure will only increase on NZ’s log supply in the near future, with Russia’s announcement it would be shutting its border to log exports to China.
Meantime, Chinese companies with processed timber products now locked out of the United States with the trade war will be circling markets, including NZ, to dump products.
Tanner says wood processors also suggest the Government install a manufacturing portfolio.
“We have ministries for forestry and agriculture but nothing for manufacturing, which is the next step up the value chain,” he said.
