Akld Forestry Investors Buoyed by Green Support

MEDIA STATEMENT

Monday 12 March 2007

For Immediate Release

Auckland Forestry Investors Buoyed by Green Party Support

The Green Party’s announcement today confirming that forest owners should receive some financial benefit from the carbon their trees remove from the atmosphere will buoy Auckland-based forestry investors heading to tonight’s MAF land-use consultation meeting at the Waipuna Hotel, the Kyoto Forestry Association (KFA) said today.

“When the Green Party speaks on climate change, the Labour-led Government should listen,” KFA spokesman Roger Dickie said.

“Green Co-Leader Jeanette Fitzsimons’ comments clearly demonstrate she understands the commercial drivers of the forestry industry. There is not a new generation of forestry investors waiting in the wings. The people who are most likely to invest in forestry in the future are those who have invested in forestry in the past. You can’t expect the 50,000 New Zealanders who invested in new forests in the 1990s to invest in new planting in the future while the Government has broken its promise that they should gain financially for the carbon they have already sequestered. How our politicians deal with the carbon credit issue from the 1990s and early part of this decade will therefore determine what tree planting we get next year and beyond.”

Mr Dickie said Ms Fitzsimons’ understanding of the commercial drivers of the forestry industry was in contrast to recent comments by Forestry Minister Jim Anderton who appeared to condemn forestry investors for wanting to profit from their trees.

“Sound climate change policy is about aligning the economics of an industry with the environmental outcomes the Government, community and all of us want to see,” Mr Dickie said. “The Green Party understands that. In contrast, by slagging people off for wanting to make a profit from planting trees, Mr Anderton risks fuelling deforestation and he certainly won’t encourage the mum-and-dad investors who drove the planting boom of the 1990s to invest in more trees in the future. Worse, if the perception develops that the Government doesn’t think people should be able to profit from forestry, any remaining potential investors will run a mile.”

Tonight’s MAF consultation meeting at Mt Wellington’s Waipuna Hotel starts at 6.30 pm. KFA expects 250 people to attend.

ENDS

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