Dryland Carbon executive director Anthony Beverley says the portion of “hot air” carbon credits in circulation in New Zealand used as offsets to emissions will decline over time and the validity of the credits is challenged by trading partners and consumers.
Dryland Carbon is a NZ-based carbon farming afforestation partnership company backed by Air New Zealand, Contact, Genesis and Z Energy. It is establishing a forestry portfolio aimed at securing a long term supply of forest backed carbon credits as New Zealand Units (NZUs).
So far the company has purchased a steep Wairoa hill country property, which will have its most marginal land planted in permanent forest and some in 35 year rotation forestry planting.
The farm manager is remaining on the property, operating the remaining higher value pastoral country.
Beverley described the NZUs from Dryland Carbon as “true blue” NZUs backed by forestry.
“My sense is that as the world gets more focused on these carbon credits, people will be more focused upon the integrity of the units.
“We have already witnessed the ruckus over the eastern European hot air credits. Over time I would expect to see them decline as a portion of total carbon credits.”
This was backed by the acknowledgement in NZ that this country’s most powerful mitigator to meet the Paris Accord was planting trees.
“Trees are the only way we can avoid the costly impost we will otherwise face.”
Confidence in the revamped ETS scheme is also higher than it was a few years ago when the scheme was all but gutted by the flood of dodgy hot air credits.
Beverley said Dryland Carbon had a preference to invest in permanent forests, given the land was usually cheaper.
Interest from farmers has also been high, although many remain wary about how permanent afforestation for carbon sequestration actually works.
“A lot are aware of it and know they should not be farming the worst of their country, but don’t want the debt that goes with putting it into trees.
“We bring the capital and expertise, they bring the land and we can split the carbon credit income. Our preferred approach is to use land farmers own.”
Carbon forestry can also mean the land owner can receive the carbon royalties up front, rather than wait five-plus years for the first carbon returns to flow.
While the Wairoa property Dryland Carbon bought could have been blanketed in trees, Beverley maintains preserving some pastoral area was the right approach, integrating carbon farming while retaining a livestock element.
He said his company has been in talks with afforestation protest group 50 Shades of Green.
“There is absolutely a case for not putting pines in the wrong place and we have discussed our model positively with them.”
