The Government will provide an extra $240 million to help reach its goal of planting one billion trees in 10 years, effectively doubling the amount of money the scheme already had in its budget.
The new money comes from the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) and comprises $120 million for partnership projects and $118 million set aside for grants.
And Minister of Regional Economic Development Shane Jones says he has plans for more money to be spent on the Government’s “ambitious” tree planting programme.
This new announcement is despite Jones saying in February just $180 million of the $3 billion fund would be used on the one billion trees project. And this new money is on top of the $245 million already committed from the PGF to the one billion trees initiative.
But speaking at the Prime Minister post Cabinet press conference, Jones said that $180 million was, in fact, referring to the “upper limit in terms of the schemes joint ventures.
The move to inject the additional funds was approved by Cabinet on Monday.
“The new grants scheme will provide simple and accessible direct funding to landowners for the cost of planting and establishing trees and regenerating indigenous forest,” Jones says.
Private landowners, government agencies, NGOs and iwi will all be able to apply with the money becoming available later this year.
In total, Jones expects the $118 million of grant money to see an additional 60 million new trees planted over the next three years.
This works out to almost $2 per tree.
“It’s a significant amount of money, but it was never going to be cheap,” Jones says.
He told reporters that he is expecting to have to add more money from the PGF into the project.
Asked how much, he said “the thick end of half a billion.”
“That’s the upper end of what we’re going to be able to chew through, prior to 2020.”
Jones says the $120 million for the “partnership fund” will create an “even closer working relationship” between Te Uru Rākau and regional councils, NGOs, training organisations, Māori landowners and community groups.
“This approach will allow us to leverage co-funding opportunities and existing know-how and experience.”
Jones says he will be looking at promoting innovation, securing sufficient labour to get trees in the ground and providing support and advice to landowners on how they can improve land-use.
According to numbers from the Minister of Primary Industries (MPI), some 53,900,000 trees have been planted since the programme was announced.
That has been at a cost of $6.5 million to the Government.
Monday's $240 million of extra funding has been pre-committed against the PGF's 2019 budget.
48 Comments
or in other words the COL underestimated the costs by 100% ... so far ....
could not find another 25mill for nurses but 240mil for trees
Has cut allocated Mental Health funding by nearly 100 mill in the year- waiting for its review
but shane jones trees-- sweet as!
wonder how many more slight cost adjustments are in the pipeline
I think the COL's honeymoon is over .. best they keep their heads down and pass some legislation for a month or two.
PM Ardern .. for crying out loud, do so culling - Kelvin Davis is a total embarrassment, Jenny Salesa is an anchor whom inspires zero confidence, Chris Hipkins isn't the greatest [he'll be trouble] ..
Unfortunately for National they are repulsive to many who suffered and under their policies and lack there of. John Key gave them 9 good years of kicking multiple cans down the road.
When it came down to it, National saying, "there is no housing crisis" translated into National being a dollar short and a day late. They are a sad, lonely lot, openly plotting to kill off their last mate - Act.
They have been going for less than a year and at a cost of $6.5 mill they plant almost 54 million trees, which is what the timber industry would have done anyway. About 50 mill is an average year of industry planting. But one could say that if 54 mill trees cost the taxpayer $6.5 mill than for $13 mill we can get 100 million planted.
Where does the rest of the money go? Is that for the closer relationship as mentioned?
To be honest I want a close relationship with Santa Jones also.
There is no way on Earth the Government has planted 50mil trees. I am a Forestry owner and Nz averages around 50mil per year and a large chunk of that is replants after harvest. To get the land the people the equipment and the stock to add additional in that time is 100% rubbish. Sorry COL sadly lies !
I note that Shane Jones justified the additional spending on environmental grounds (climate change and land stability).
Try telling the people in Tolaga Bay that. Slash from forestry operations has proved to be a major environmental problem.
This is by far the most pressing environmental issue for them - cleaning out the rivers and the beach as well as repairs to infrastructure - without any indication of government funding.
As an aside. I traveled the Napier - Taupo Road recently and noted that the stream where there was an issue following heavy rain a month or so back which closed the road for 48 hours also had a considerable amount of slash.
I don't have any data on this question, but would be interested to learn some of the actual facts.
Long term, does growing trees actually reduce green house gas?
Sure it turns CO2 into wood, but eventually what happens to the wood. Does it just end up back again as CO2 or worse still Methane.
What percentage of a forests biomass ends up captured as useful wood? 30%? 50%? 60%? What happens to the rest? Apart from the almighty mess that we are witnessing as slash and all the problems that it causes; how much of it rots down to methane? Methane is supposed to be 30 times worse as a greenhouse gas, so if only 3.33% of the biomas ends up as methane then we have gained nothing on that basis alone. Any higher and we are going backward.
Are we just kidding ourselves or worse?
It would be good to hear some research and data from the Prime Ministers science advisor on the subject.
I have asked the exact same question to several 'weird beards' who had credential lists longer than a firehose. Their reactions weren't confidence inspiring in the slightest. I am also highly concerned about all these urban greenwaste recycling plants...who is counting their emmissions?
Radiata pine product half life info https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Half-life-used-for-each-product_tbl…
Decomposition into methane would require quite specific conditions. If it did, methane has an atmospheric residency of about 7 years before breaking down into CO2 and water.
Thanks for that Simon. I haven't digested it yet but will do so. Is this the basis on which carbon credits are calculated?
At a brief glance I had not appreciated just how quickly the wood we produce is released back as carbon dioxide and most of the carbon locked up is in the trees as they grow. Maybe if we concentrated on higher quality timbers then the carbon would stay locked up for longer. I notice that this study uses the milled logs as it's starting point. It would be interesting to see what proportion of the total biomass this is and what happens with the slash and prunings. Having said that the life cycle carbon capture graph suggests that the total biomass is being counted at the establishment of the forests.
Thinking about the microbiology, (as a lay person) I imagine that whether or not slash produces methane will be effected by whether it is anaerobically or aerobically decomposed. As you say variable according to conditions but given it's potency perhaps worth giving guidance on managing slash.
Here is an interesting article on the global warming behaviour of methane
http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/research/energy/downloads/methaneuk/chapter02.p…
Note on p22 that while its decay rate is comparatively faster than CO2 its global warming potential (GWP) is still very significantly greater per tonne than CO2 and this persists over a very long time.
Currently under the ETS, it is assumed that all carbon is spontaneously released as CO2 upon harvest.Coincidentally, the Government released a whole set of proposed consultation options last night that includes accounting for harvested wood products. http://mpi.govt.nz/news-and-resources/consultations/a-better-ets-for-fo…
Planting forests increases soil carbon, compared to cropping or grazing. Problem is the climate change industry ignores soil carbon because it isn't virtual signalling enough. Hence you only ever hear about farmers gross emissions not net emissions which take soil carbon into account.
Jones says he will be looking at promoting innovation, securing sufficient labour to get trees in the ground and providing support and advice to landowners on how they can improve land-use.
According to numbers from the Minister of Primary Industries (MPI), some 53,900,000 trees have been planted since the programme was announced.
That's 12 cents per tree isn't it?
A grant of $2/ tree ?
Wow , that's expensive .
Has this Government lost touch with all reality ?
One Billion trees at $2/ tree , and thats the "grant " to propagate and plant these trees
And what g'tee is there that the projected 60,000,000 trees will even be planted ?
This could backfire in spectacular fashion
Frankly , we really need to see some documentation or strategy paper explaining how we the taxpayers are going to get our money's worth .
Lets just call a spade a spade here .............follow me on this one , while we unpack what's going on here
The Auckland fuel levy to build very important infrastructure ( and which requires tons of labour ) is expected to raise under $100 m this year and $1,5 billion over 10 years .
This fuel levy is already creating hardship among the poor .
Shane Jones has just waddled out of a Cabinet meeting to announce he is to spend the equivalent of the first 2 years fuel levy to plant trees .
Trees which would likely have been planted by the Private sector anyway
WTF are these people smoking at the Cabinet meetings ?
No, Boatman.
You have missed the point totally if you have tried to use rationale logic.
It is nothing to do with logic or responsible economic management, but rather simply about NZ First re-election. NZF are not at interested in trying to win Auckland or other major urban area; however, the provinces and especially Northland!
Maybe I may be a bit flippant, but usually there is a lot of truth in such comments. Look at the early surprisingly big budget announcements (with lots of fanfare) which were largely made by NZF; not only regional development, but also Winston's Foreign Affairs and Racing portfolios at the expense of Labour's babies - WFF etc which were either delayed or scaled back. It wold appear Labour paid a high price for the coalition agreement, and like any blackmail/extortion, once you have paid you will keep paying. So, there was not the money for nurses, but plenty of money has suddenly become available for Shane's baby.
Shane and his cohorts are all gonna donate their over inflated salaries to start the ball rolling.
They are gonna spend each and every day exercising their fat of the land bodies to plant em.
We will be deeply grateful.
We will all benefit from donating their benefits, so we can benefit in futures.
I wish.
What are they smoking......Weed....not reality.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-urinals/paris-residents-peeve…
What are these lot smoking...Pee.......in Paris..
I suspect he's had some input from these folks who did some extensive background research;
http://pureadvantage.org/news/2016/04/22/our-forest-future/
But the timing of the announcement is rather odd - so I suspect as nzdan suggested above, it is earmarked as a $2/tree subsidy that some major forester(s) needs Cabinet sign off/guarantee of urgently, as the raw materials/seedlings need to be purchased or they'll be bought by someone else. Just a guess.
I plant lots of trees every year, a pine tree gets stuck in the ground and grows, can take over 100 days with out rain and quickly gets ahead of weeds like blackberry. The rest take a lot of care, need releasing etc. Pines and gums are cheap per tree, the rest cost multiples more to buy. A mixed forest is a complex environment that needs managing carefully.
Yes indeed natives take a lot, lot more care to get them established - and patience. And it seems that it is the multiples more to buy that is the issue behind the increase in funding for the government initiative;
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2018/08/13/190298/greens-win-big-native-tree…
Timing of the Cabinet decision/announcement obviously related to the Greens annual conference. Fascinating how it looks like these three coalition partners are working together to keep the minor parties in the game. A good thing for the future of MMP.
Bear in mind these are not just forestry plantings. While you can buy a pine seedling for 30 to 50 cents, a plantable native or exotic tree might run to $ 4 -6 . While pines can be planted in slash with little preparation , native and riparian sites need to be cleared , fenced , often tree guards need to be used . and they need to be released after planting. a total cost of $ 10 per tree wouldn't be exorbitant, I think Environment Waikato were allowing $ 6 -8 a tree for riparian plantings.
As an aside, the carbon price is now at $23.50 which knocking on the ceiling cap price of $25. Rumor has it that rather than using up their own credits at harvest, foresters are choosing to instead buy carbon at $23.50 and banking their credits. Reason being co course when the cap comes off, the price could sky rocket - giving them a nice little (big) arbitrage.
Guess who pays for this? yes ...the tax payer. The more the govt dithers with this cap, the more it's going to cost you an I.
Merits of the scheme aside.....this is a real cost to NZ tax payers and until the cost falls on emitters there will be no incentive to reduce emissions.
Rastus it already is happening globally - without the help of Shane's boondoggle. I'm sure this news of an extra 224 million ha of forest will make you very happy. "Here we analyse 35 years’ worth of satellite data and provide a comprehensive record of global land-change dynamics during the period 1982–2016. We show that—contrary to the prevailing view that forest area has declined globally—tree cover has increased by 2.24 million km2 (+7.1% relative to the 1982 level). This overall net gain is the result of a net loss in the tropics being outweighed by a net gain in the extratropics. Global bare ground cover has decreased by 1.16 million km2 (−3.1%), most notably in agricultural regions in Asia."
Shane is spending $485 million to plant 240,000 ha of trees in futile, virtue signalling, attempt change the climate. Even more futile given the area only represents 0.1% of the net afforestation that occurred globally since 1982. Virtue signalling isn't a solution. We already have a solution to - it's called CO2.
"Factorial simulations with multiple global ecosystem models suggest that CO2 fertilization effects explain 70% of the observed greening trend, followed by nitrogen deposition (9%), climate change (8%) and land cover change (LCC) (4%)."
There are many ways to plant trees, e.g., donation from the public, student volunteering, clubs and societies, logging companies etc. NZ is not a desert and unless there's immediate flooding or erosion risk, why plant so many? If the government has $240mil to spare, it should be used on people.
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