One of the issues emerging out of the debacle caused by the forestry slash and many other short comings when it comes to land use, is the lack of a holistic approach to management and decision making.
Too often decisions are made where the thought process stops at the point where the money lands in the bank.
That can occur in all businesses, however when it comes to agriculture, forestry and other sectors where land and water are involved the externalities which result from actions can be far more wide ranging.
Up until recently landowners have largely not had to consider what the wider impact of on farm (or forest etc) decisions have had. However, dairy was the first to have to acknowledge that effluent from farms was having (in some cases a major) a detrimental impact on downstream waterways, and more recently the impact of nutrients leaching through the soils into aquifers and beyond.
While some will say still not enough is being done to reduce and mitigate this issue, at least now the problem has been recognised and acknowledged by the industry and improvements are being made.
Hopefully forestry can make the same strides.
The finger can also be pointed at those who are contributing to problems by the lack of actions on the land, I.e. a lack of conservation planting etc. The theme of externalities can be extended quite a way beyond the obvious to include soil quality, animal welfare and impacts upon ecosystems as well as communities.
Professor Keith Woodford would often rail against some individuals at their lack of adopting a “Systems Approach” to management and decision making and accuse (correctly) these individuals of operating within silos and having very blinkered approaches to decisions and at Universities, research. So, it is with this as a back drop that it has been refreshing to see the upsurge in the ‘movement’ to regenerative farming.
It has taken some criticism as lacking a clear definition but if readers take the time to watch Rod Oram’s interviews with several farmers it is pretty clear about the direction these individuals are heading. Oram has become a passionate voice in the cause of regenerative agriculture and with his columns on Newsroom and his speaking opportunities, he is certainly doing his bit to get the message out there.
To many farmers the systems approach is second nature and they have been following the general principles for decades to a greater or lesser degree. Science might be finally starting to catch up and work with them rather than trying to explain away many of the results that have been achieved.
Broadly speaking though, farming for some time now has had to argue for its “license to farm” as the ‘noise’ from opposing voices and philosophies grow louder. This has largely been due to farmers own actions and inactions which have impacted on ecosystems and communities.
Forestry is now also coming onto the stage and the management techniques (or lack of them) are being questioned and they to are being held to account and will have a job to re-earn their “license to farm” (trees in their case).
Being able to justify why ‘you’ should have the ‘privilege’ to use the land should not have to be a difficult thing to manage if the correct decisions are being made.
Land use is only going to come under more scrutiny as the bar to what can be considered acceptable gets progressively raised. Many landowners will find the ‘heat’ too much and leave the industry. I can see a scenario where if government and respective councils start to apply accountability to the forest industry regarding harvesting methods there may be an exodus from it as the reduced returns which are likely to ensue, at least in the shorter term, mean they fail to meet shareholder expectations.
The reduced number of dairy farm sales and lowering of the farm price is at least in part due to the increased scrutiny and cost of compliance within that industry. We aren’t seeing a land use change away from dairy as yet, as the alternative land uses have not yet emerged on the scale required to enable wholesale land use shifts, unlike what happened from sheep to dairy a decade or two ago and now to trees.
But the longer time goes on and with shifting consumer preferences, the odds of something new coming onto the scene increases.
Forestry by its very nature and in most cases the terrain it’s on is going to be a more difficult beast to tame and it may be letting it return to its ‘feral state’ may be the best thing for it.
In the meantime if more land users took a regenerative and restorative approach to land use, a Systems Approach, the country would breath a collective sigh.
16 Comments
The crazy thing is we mapped the land use capability years ago, but we don't really use that information very well
https://lris.scinfo.org.nz/layer/48076-nzlri-land-use-capability-2021/
It was indeed, an ugly sight seeing all those trees take out small bridges & the like, during the cyclone recently. Why there isn't a second tier contractor system used to come & ''harvest'' those cut trees that are not used for their prime purpose (usually export) strikes me as being naive.
They will tell me there are costs involved, & probably come with health & safety regulations that are so burdensome, they would need their own truck to carry them around with them. It's a shame that we have become so regulated that we are killing opportunities for the smaller players, who in this instance, would act as a clearer of the land, supplying wood to other smaller mainly local users for a variety of uses.
With the price of timber these days so high, you'd think there would be an opportunity in there somewhere.
Don't think regs are the issue. There is such a glut of biomass on SH35 with minimal demand that its value approaches zero at the top of the hill.
There are severe logistical challenges in the area, and serious thought on value add options is needed.
The biomass has a value at the bottom of the hill, but in most cases it's negative because you have to pay for disposal
Good post Wrong John but its not just about the regulations (the constraints on profitability if you will), its about the attitude of those in the forestry industry. Most of them couldn't give a rats arse about providing an opportunity for 2md-tier businesses. Its all about the opportunity cost of doing things poorly. Land use has a short term and a long term value (Kotahitanga is about this). Forestry just doesn't get this, because - as a general rule - they place no value on the land and its future.
Speaking of alternate land uses;
https://www.hempbenchmarks.com/hemp-market-insider/hemp-potential-as-livestock-feed/
This article doesn't explain the issue well and unfairly points the finger at farmers. The problem is silo thinking and lack of holistic, systems and integrated approach particularly at central and local government policy levels. The dairy expansion and likes of border dyke irrigation that had damaging impacts on water quality were consented through the legal system. Councils ticked off the consents like for border irrigation and neither they nor farmers realized the damage. Similarly the current crazy Government incentivized pine boom on marginal land is coming at the expense of unique in the world native shrublands. Which is in part why Groundswell NZ is calling for a complete halt to all the unworkable environmental policies in silos and the development of one integrated, holistic environmental policy framework. Our proposal is for a nationwide on farm advisory system alongside the environmental regulations both of which apply the holistic, integrated systems approach.
The dairy expansion and likes of border dyke irrigation that had damaging impacts on water quality were consented through the legal system. Councils ticked off the consents like for border irrigation and neither they nor farmers realized the damage.
If you are referring to the dairy conversion of the Canterbury Plains via the CPW irrigation scheme, after the first proposal failed via the Courts, the National Government had to dismiss the legally elected Regional Council in order to put in their own nominated administrator to get the irrigation scheme passed. In that case, the damaging impacts on water quality were well known and documented (in my recollection of the evidence). Hence, central government cancelled democracy, the landholder CPW trust changed the consent requests to a run-of-river irrigation scheme, the government administrator then saw to it that the irrigation scheme got through.
Central Plains Water Limited (cpwl.co.nz)
I referred generally to the consent system and border dyke. Bit like the pre 1984 subsidy era where successive governments encouraged native forest clearance and wetland drainage. Building of urban centre's taking out wetland. We should learn from the past to develop policies for the future.
We at Groundswell NZ have used the words holistic and integrated in our discussions with the Government, submissions, presentations and media because we believe in those concepts and have seen the damage of policies in silos. Our initial thoughts on a solution was released last year and we are working on an updated version.
We know what to do - it’s been researched for decades. Don’t need any more reports.
Stop using high risk erodible lands - over 1 million ha of farmland has been identified to retire to permanent forest cover. Stop production forestry on many of these lands as well.
Reduce nutrient input into soils and hence rivers, wetlands etc - this means less intensive systems or capture nutrients and stop forest and wetland clearance.
looking at aerial imagery on the East Coast - the entire length, you have to question the focus on refencing etc to simply rinse and repeat and claim it’s all ok. A huge amount of this farmland falls into the 1 million ha identified above by science for the last 100 years.
Just like emissions reductions everyone claims they don’t need to or have done their bit.
Good luck you will just go broke in the end and then blame the Government as usual or some weird conspiracy from somewhere.
Yep, and we've known all this for a while...
Probably the cheapest way to deal with the current mess is to buy everyone on the east coast a wood fired stove , and let the local economy sort it out . Plus a wood pellet factory on the 35 , and one in Gisborne.
With advances in robotics and drones , i wonder if coppicing species may be more suitable in some of these areas.
We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment.
Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.