Fears High Country Land Could Be Planted In Pine Under Government's Climate Plan

Monday, 20 January 2025, 9:05 am
Article: RNZ

Eloise Gibson, Climate Change Correspondent

Critics say a plan to put pine trees on Department of Conservation land is a half-baked scheme that will not work - and could undo the millions spent removing wilding pines.

The government's climate plans have come under scrutiny after the country's largest farm, Molesworth Station, was included in a map of land that could be planted in forestry.

On 18 December, the government asked the private sector for expressions of interest in planting pine or natives trees on Department of Conservation land, to absorb carbon dioxide and help meet its climate targets.

Agriculture Minister Todd McClay said the government was not interested in converting entire farms to forestry under the policy, and only conservation land of low farming and conservation values would make the final cut.

He said the map of possible planting land that was published (which included large areas of the South Island's high country) encompassed all conservation land that was not already forested or part of a National Park - and the land had not yet been screened for suitability.

Potential partners in the scheme have been asked to indicate what land might be suitable, and what it would take for them to partner with the Crown to plant new forests on public land.

Environmental Defence Society head Gary Taylor said the plan looked half-cooked.

"It's a very odd sort of proposition and it came out with a rush just before Christmas, and so it has that sort of half-baked look about it. You can just imagine officials rushing to get it finished in time," he said.

"It's very much a fishing expedition, they don't really know whether this will take off off or not."

Meeting the government's emissions-cutting obligations relies heavily on tree planting, including planting carried out under this proposal.

Government projections out to 2040 show current policies will achieve only modest reductions in planet-heating gases produced by the likes of transport, farming and industry. That means most of the heavy lifting has to be done by planting trees and nascent engineering solutions, such as capturing and storing carbon dioxide in underground reservoirs.

The proposal to plant conservation land accounts for a significant part of the climate gains forecast for the 2030s. If it fails, New Zealand would fall further behind on its climate targets.

Official estimates made for the government's Emissions Reductions Plan say the scheme could remove 1.8 million tones of carbon dioxide from the air between 2031 and 2035, and an impressive further 10 million tones from 2036-2040.

However the planting proposal comes with no specific government funding.

To avoiding cannibalising existing tree planting efforts, potential applicants have been told that as little of the new forestry as possible should be registered for carbon payments under the Emissions Trading Scheme.

That has raised questions over how the planting will be funded.

Taylor said most of the land was in the South Island, far from any port, making it unviable for forestry companies to log and ship the trees.

"You've got to ask yourself, why would a forester or an individual invest in planting trees on Crown land with no obvious return possible?".

But Forest Owners Association head Elizabeth Heeg said some commercial foresters were "kicking the tyres" on the proposal, albeit taking into account the possibly high transportation costs. She said the Crown was seen as a good partner by private forestry companies.

"Right now I would say the jury is still out. It looks like there's a fair whack of it that is probably either high altitude or would have wilding [pine] risk," she said.

"If you can't get the carbon income, that will change the pitch and, frankly, if you can't get timber or carbon then it will be interesting to see what the interest is."

Heeg said regardless of whether her members ultimately joined the scheme, planting more trees was necessary to meet climate goals, and using unused conservation land was a good idea.

Another possibility is that companies or charities might plant native species under voluntary carbon or biodiversity schemes. These schemes are sometimes paid for by companies looking to reduce their environment impact - for example Air NZ and other large companies already fund native planting as part of their voluntary climate commitments.

However modelling of the impact of government policies by officials suggests most of the new tree planting will be pine trees.

Labour land spokesperson Damien O'Connor said the government risked undoing millions of dollars spent removing wilding pines from the conservation estate.

He said the country already had too much pine in unsuitable locations, and some of it was proving uneconomic to harvest.

"There are areas of low value conservation land that could be planted, ideally in natives, but if it was to be in some kind of exotic plantation we would have to make sure it didn't add to the spread of wilding pine. We could end up with some very sad unintended consequences, and no real reduction to our emissions profile."

O'Connor said the government was over-reliant on tree planting because it had scrapped other emissions-cutting policies.

Feedback from potential tree planters closes at 5pm on 28 February.

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