Forestry Minister Stuart Nash has continued to make good on plans about tightening the rules around forests in the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).
Nash, along with Climate Change Minister James Shaw, has announced proposals to have future permanent plantings of exotic forests excluded from the ETS.
The proposal would mean only slower growing native forests could be included in what are termed “carbon forests”, locked up in perpetuity to sequester carbon.
The plans have been released in a public discussion document seeking input on possible changes to ETS forest regulations.
Nash raised the possibility of “natives-only” to Farmers Weekly in February, along with his preference to see the special forestry test enabling foreign buyers to purchase land for forestry here to be changed.
In late February that rule was duly revoked, with Nash announcing foreign forestry buyers would have to undergo the more arduous “benefit to New Zealand” test before getting purchase approval.
The Government has also been under some pressure to reconsider its preferences for using exotic forestry to sequester carbon to help meet its Paris Accord obligations.
Nash voiced his concerns last month to the Weekly over the legacy of unpruned unfellable pine trees such forests could become.
“We want to balance the risks created by new permanent exotic forests which are not intended for harvest,” Nash said.
“We have a window to build safeguards into the system, prior to a new ETS framework coming into force on January 1, 2023.”
In the past two years about 20,000ha of land or 23% of total newly afforested land area has been put into carbon forestry.
In February, Nash expressed his concern on the impact of rising carbon prices accelerating the rate of exotic carbon forestry planting well beyond the current rates.
The carbon price has soared from $35 a unit in late 2020 to over $80 now.
But a greater reliance on natives also puts the Government’s obligations under the Paris Accord for zero carbon by 2050 under greater pressure.
Natives only sequestered a quarter of the carbon exotics do in their first 28 years of growth.
The Forest Owners Association maintains there should be no differentiation between exotic or indigenous trees, focusing instead on those that are “long-lived”. This would enable the inclusion of the likes of redwoods or Douglas fir, both which can live for centuries.
Nash has said government could be open to considering exceptions to a “natives-only” policy for carbon forests.
He is also aware that the higher costs of establishing native forests, which can be double that of exotics, is also a barrier to incentivising more plantings.
He has acknowledged there is a need to make native plantings for carbon more appealing for investment, but believes such plantings may hold appeal to philanthropic investors.
