The government is stuck between the rock of expensive climate change policies and the hard place of the cost of living crisis. This is why the carbon market is so important for financing climate change solutions at scale according to Sean Weaver, Ekos CEO.

“To get ready for a future with more regular ex tropical cyclones like Cyclone Gabrielle we urgently need to build climate resilient landscapes in places like the Gisborne District, Hawkes Bay, inland Wanganui, and Northland,” says Weaver.

This will require replacing clear-cut forestry and pastoral farming on hundreds of thousands of hectares of erosion lands with a sustainable and economically viable alternative. According to Weaver, the most suitable alternative is continuous cover forestry.

Continuous cover forestry never clear cuts the forest but instead either does not harvest, or harvests individual trees, groups of trees, patches or strips in an on-going cycle of harvest and replacement. About 30% of all forestry in Europe uses this approach. Lands too steep for even single tree harvesting can be planted in native trees and managed for conservation.

“We now have a carbon market that can help fund this kind of sustainable forestry, so long as the government does not keep treating the NZETS like a political football and show other countries how not to manage a carbon market”, Weaver said.

Many conservation groups are arguing strongly for recloaking the land only in native forests and using the carbon market to do this. But Ekos, which is a native forest conservation specialist company, has had to face the inconvenient truth that the economic viability of native reforestation funded by carbon credits often fails.

“We kept bumping into some stark financial realities related to the slow growth rates of native forests. We then had to decide between two options – to give up, or to innovate and deliver the next best thing. For us, the next best thing is to use this magical little word “and” where we plant native and exotic forests and manage the exotic forests to transition to native forest across several decades.”

This notion of transition forests has received considerable controversy among conservation groups not wanting to accept the use of exotic forests as part of the nation’s climate change solution. But Weaver says that harvesting and replacing strips or patches of exotic forest with native forest is not controversial.

“The conservation groups keep falsely claiming that our notion of transition forests is all about planting a pine forest and walking away. This is not true. We are advocating for a managed transition using continuous cover forestry methods proven in this country and overseas. I invite anyone to look at the countless situations where native forests are growing next to exotic forests – this happens all around the country. Continuous cover forest management involves planting native forests in patches or strips next to exotic forests. And the exotics do not have to be pines – they can be eucalypts, oaks, redwoods, alder – whatever species is suitable for that location and management regime”, he said.

“There are many who demand unattainable policy perfection in an imperfect world. If you cannot afford a Rolls Royce you simply cannot have one. But you can have something that will do the same job at a lower price. We are in a cost of living crisis and ordinary households have not been asking for a gold-plated climate change solution. They are asking for an affordable one,” he said.

“The most sustainable form of wood and fibre production comes from continuous cover forestry. Why the government and conservation groups are so against this is beyond me”, he said.

“We need to reforest very large areas of erosion lands to get ready for climate change at a cost of billions of dollars. If we choose a sensible middle path approach we can deliver this at zero cost to the taxpayer, instead of asking teachers, police officers and nurses to take a pay cut so that purists can have their gold-plated climate change solution”, Weaver said.

The government has also cautioned against unlimited reforestation arguing that it may create too many carbon credits and then crash the carbon price and reduce the incentive to reduced carbon pollution. But at the same time the government is planning to buy around 100 million carbon credits from offshore.

“If the taxpayer is being asked to buy 100 million carbon credits from other countries, why not buy them from our own farmers wanting to make a living from sustainable forestry on their erosion lands whilst sustaining their land value?” Weaver said.

The trading mechanism that the government proposes to use to buy carbon credits from offshore is

called ‘Internationally Transferrable Mitigation Outcomes’ (ITMOs). But Sean Weaver is saying that the government should design its climate policy settings to be an exporter rather than an importer of carbon under the same ITMO mechanism.

“Then any so-called ‘over supply’ of carbon from sustainable forestry can be bought by the government, sold to another country, using the foreign exchange to recoup the cost – all at zero cost to the taxpayer in a cost of living crisis”, Weaver said.

According to Weaver the government has been mismanaging the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme and causing massive policy uncertainty and investment uncertainty. This is preventing the development of a continuous cover carbon forestry sector from fixing our erosion landscapes and helping our rural communities.

“There are many who dream of a future with only native forests on our hillsides. As a career native forest conservationist, I think that would be nice too. But if you cannot finance your dream, you’re a dreamer. And it is time to wake up to the climate crisis and admit that in a crisis the perfect is the enemy of the good”, Weaver said.

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