Farmers resent the proposed uncompensated lock on their native biodiverse forest land while the same politicians give a free rein to urban investors to plant monocultures around them to cover their continued fossil fuel use

It seems as though another piece of bureaucratic ideology directed at the agricultural sector emerges every week. The latest one, at least at the time of writing, is the recently amended National Policy Statement on Indigenous Biodiversity (NPSIB) and more specifically the proposed classification of Significant Natural Areas (see page 17) under the legislation.

Not content with this Ministers Shaw and Nash are now reconsidering their previous decision to drop exotic forests from the permanent category of the ETS saying these are now “unlikely” to be excluded.

This is yet another example of policy being decided on the hoof, with the effect of pleasing neither Maori forestry interests nor the pastoral sector because of the uncertainty which will prevail until they have considered their options.

Pastoral farming is coming under continual pressure from all sides, whether from regulation to dictate what is permitted on farms, afforestation to generate carbon credits or growing consumer pressure to become more environmentally sustainable. While climate change is real, it is unrealistic to imagine this country’s actions will singlehandedly save the planet or agricultural emissions are entirely to blame for where we are today although a vocal number of New Zealanders and lobby groups appear to hold that view. Extreme weather events are increasingly conflated with environmental issues, such as water quality and fossil fuels, with agriculture being an easy target for apportioning blame.

The challenge to James Shaw’s party leadership happened because, as Climate Change Minister, he is not green enough for the more radical Green party members. Although he is likely to survive until the next general election, it isn’t difficult to imagine a time when the minister will be less reasonable than Shaw, to the detriment of the agricultural sector. Despite all the work in its development and partial recommendation by the Climate Change Commission, HWEN may not survive a change in Greens’ leadership. The more extreme environmental warriors are not interested in how the New Zealand economy survives in the future, but only in seeing agricultural emissions reduced to an uneconomic degree.

The ridiculously prescriptive treatment of SNAs as proposed would see virtually all areas of native biodiversity on farms, including recently introduced vegetation and wetlands, captured by the legislation and farmers prevented from doing anything with huge swathes of their own farmland. The area of native vegetation on sheep and beef farmland in New Zealand is second only to the conservation estate, so the ramifications are huge, both for the agricultural sector and the economy as a whole. The inevitable outcomes, if the NPSIB becomes law without extensive amendment, will be dramatically reduced farm viability and farmer disengagement from the government’s goals for biodiversity.

Northland sheep and beef farmer and Agfirst director James Parsons says the intent behind the NPSIB is good, but to be workable it must be outcomes focused, whereas the bill as drafted attempts to prescribe for every exception. This would act as a serious disincentive to landowners to invest in improving biodiversity for fear of having these areas classified as SNAs which “surely must be a perverse outcome.”

Parsons maintains a far better approach would be to use a farm plan, such as NZFAP Plus, which would incorporate biodiversity, water quality and farm assurance measures, enabling farmers to “take a holistic and informed view of their farm to improve biodiversity outcomes.” The frustrating part of this is the sector has already built the system which enables farmers to monitor their individual farm assurance and measure their emissions, with the potential addition of measures for environmental performance and vegetation. But the ministers and the Ministry for Environment have fallen into the classic bureaucratic trap of believing solutions can only come out of the public service, the sole repository of knowledge. It is amazing the agricultural sector has got this far with HWEN; let’s hope it can reach the desired conclusion.

Another former Beef + Lamb NZ chairman, Mike Petersen, now convenes the HWEN agricultural sector partner group and, from that perspective, urges the importance of recognising sequestration within HWEN while ensuring compatibility with NPSIB and SNA legislation. On his Hawkes Bay farm where he has planted natives on 20% of the property there are currently no SNAs, but under the proposed legislation, it is quite possible for these areas to be caught by a retrospective classification without compensation. It is clearly unfair for farmers which have carried out substantial native plantings and wetland conversions to be treated the same as those who are yet to take action.

Only last month the Climate Change Commission provided advice to government ministers about the appropriateness of the He Waka Eke Noa partnership’s recommendations for pricing agricultural emissions at the farm level. The CCC suggested on farm sequestration should be recognised separately for improvements to water quality and biodiversity instead of through offsets against emissions, by reason of fairness and equity.

This has two implications for farmers, neither of which is fair or equitable. First, farmers will not be rewarded directly for sequestration that does not meet ETS requirements in spite of being levied for their on farm emissions. Second the NPSIB and proposed classification of SNAs will seriously prohibit what they are allowed to do on their own SNAs and therefore treat them like a liability not an asset. There would be no biodiversity credit or support in return for the significant environmental service sheep and beef farmers provide to the country. In stark contrast fossil fuel emitters are allowed to offset 100% of their emissions by planting thousands of hectares with a monoculture at odds with the landscapes this country is renowned for.

This is yet another example of work being rushed through to meet a self-imposed deadline without pausing to consider whether Fabius Maximus’s exhortation to ‘hurry slowly’ might not be more sensible. The far-reaching tentacles of the nanny state risk, to mix metaphors, throttling the geese that lay New Zealand’s golden eggs.

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