This week David Norton joined me to share his views on recent flooding events in Gisborne and the Hawke’s Bay. David Norton is a Professor at University of Canterbury and areas of research are vast and include integrated land management (especially involving biodiversity in agricultural and plantation forest systems), and research focusing on integrating pastoral and biodiversity values in New Zealand Farming systems and high country environments.
He visited Tolaga Bay back in 2018 after another significant event, and he say’s we're seeing the same sort of damage again, substantial amounts of sediment and slash coming out of catchments, which is impacting on productive, aquatic and marine systems.
I asked if he has any concerns around carbon farming, he says that the old saying of the right tree in the right place with the right purpose is very much relevant today.
“I have to confess to have grave concerns about carbon farming, and I mean when I look at the ETS, and I look at what they call the permanent category of the emissions trading scheme, to me permanent, we're talking about decades and centuries. The reality is carbon dioxide has a half-life in the atmosphere of 120 years and some of the carbon dioxide that’s out there now, remember it's increased by 50%. Some of what's out there now is going to be there and several hundred year’s time. So when we talk about permanent forests, I just don't get it that pine is being planted for carbon and not providing a permanent forest. To me I'll be quite honest with you, I see them as a money making venture, someone has figured out there is good money to be made and planning pine trees; We will plant pine trees we will harvest the carbon credits, and they'll be great for the next 30/40 years, and well I probably won't be around, the investor thinks, and I've got my money.”
“There is no credible science from New Zealand to suggest that in our environment that apart from a few situations that you can transition them [exotic trees] to natives unless you invest a substantial amount of money. And I'm seeing no evidence that those people who are proposing and promoting carbon farming with exotic trees are prepared to put the money aside. I mean, I think if they are genuine about transitioning then they should say, Well look we'll put half the carbon income, hold it back, put it into some sort of fund and we'll use that to then manage that transition in the future. That's not happening, and unless that's done, it's ecologically fraudulent in my mind.”
Norton says farmers should get recognition for the native plantings they have done and are doing and sequestration in its entirety should be calculated. He says parts of the ETS are flawed and that it is an excuse for polluters to continue to pollute and that needs to be addressed.
Sequestration
“We [also] need to be thinking about the other side of the equation which is sequestration and what sequestration is about and it's got to be permanent, it's got to be permanent and long term. And I think we should be rewarding and providing an income for native forests as a permanent long term carbon sequestration tool, both for post 1990 but also for pre 1990. If a farmer can show that they are making a deliberate decision with an area of regenerating forest or an old North Island cutover native forest, that they are deliberately excluding livestock and deliberately managing goats and pigs and deer to favour carbon and biodiversity. And I think they should get rewarded for that as well, because it's all sequestering carbon.”
So what about change at a policy level, do we need change?
"Well we definitely need change and look, I will talk to any politician and I've talked to some National politicians today, I talked to Green politicians, I'll talk to Labour politicians, I want everybody to recognise that we can have sustainable rural landscapes that provide a key part of our income as a nation through sustainable farming. But to do that we need to have native forests as a core part of that."
"And that native forest can range from hedgerows of native trees, small copses, right up to you know, catchments that that are eroding planted up or allowed to regenerate into natives and forming resilient landscapes. We get too caught up with adaptation as being around infrastructure. I think what we should be talking about is resilience, building resilient landscapes that can both help protect people communities livelihoods, but also can help sequester carbon draw down carbon from the atmosphere and to me that would be the best the best outcome for rural New Zealand. And we are not talking about converting every single sheep and beef farm in New Zealand by any means into native forests. We're just talking about having a land use approach where we have native trees as being a core part of how we use our rural landscapes.”
Listen to the podcast to hear the full story
Angus Kebbell is the Producer at Tailwind Media. You can contact him here.
9 Comments
So many have been saying it for years;
One could argue that the coalition Government’s billion trees programme combined with a strengthened NZ ETS (carbon market), is a form of payment for ecosystem services.
But, if it is, it’s the wrong one for New Zealand to my mind. Pinus radiata is a cake-and-eat-it-too approach with respect to climate change. The “offsets” planted today, will have likely been harvested by 2050, and they degrade, rather than enhance, our natural ecosystems.
I would rather government subsidies were spent on the regeneration of permanent, native forest cover that actually enhances our biodiversity, through providing habitat and food for our endemic wildlife, alongside the planting of specialty tree crops.
If we pursued climate pragmatism and the associated no regrets pollution reduction measures, regenerative agricultural practices would be particularly relevant in transforming both our environment and our economy.
As rural land owners convert hill country pasture back to permanent native forest, reverse engineer drained land to wetlands, and convert fertilised pasture to organic, it seems sensible to me that government should assist farming through this needed transformation by way of payment for these restored ecosystem services.
Examples of the ‘right’ kind of science and the real solution to climate change for Aotearoa New Zealand is found here and here. It’s called the family farm.
And;
Jane Clifton’s recent article in New Zealand Listener, ’Out on a limb: How to fix New Zealand's flawed forestry policy’ covers the trend of carbon-forest investors outbidding farmers for rural land, noting that:
North Island forestry land prices have risen from $6656 a hectare to $13,128 in the year to April… [and Shane] Jones’ forestry officials have had to go back to the drawing board to reconsider the parameters of his One Billion Trees Programme.
It is a good study in perverse incentives associated with cap and trade carbon policy, combined with an economic development initiative adding a sweetener on top.
Still, reluctant as they [the Coalition Government] might be to soften or change any of the courses they’ve set in this intensely complex policy area, the political risk is considerable. The farmland-conversion issue is just one potentially perverse incentive that, between Billion Trees and the ETS, could bedevil the Government’s best intentions.
Given the disaster that ravaged Tolaga Bay, taxpayer subsidies on radiata pine have the potential to produce similar ecological harm to that arising from government subsidies on irrigation. And like irrigation, it is near impossible for industry to mitigate for the effects of this inappropriate land-use. Native bush is the only way to combat this type of future destruction.
Happily, the Coalition Government canned the irrigation subsidies, let’s hope they do the same for Pinus radiata.
Yes, and we're getting much better at pest control recently - just need the appropriate amount of resources. And the great thing about pest control is that it needs to be carried out on a full-time, year round basis - unlike the on/off passive management associated with exotic forest. Hence, native forest management has the potential to be a far, far greater employer in rural communities than is afforded by exotic forestry.
I don't know whether wildfires are any more destructive or probable/susceptible where native forests are concerned than exotic plantations. From a purely anecdotal point-of-view - sub-tropical, native vegetation seems to retain more moisture than a pine plantation.
Nature always designs best for local conditions..
Killing animals full time gets rather gruesome very quickly (try it for a full time job and see how you go killing opossums, deer, goats every day - you have to kill everything - men, woman and children - no mercy) and not many are cut out for it. Who pays for it? agree we need it urgently in our existing native forests, which everyone forgets. For really effective pest control you need industrial scale solutions- helicopters, poison etc to be effective - we have demonstrated this over the years but everyone wants to re invent the wheel again.
If it was only this easy.
Agree about needing solutions at scale - and poison drops are a tool we absolutely need at the moment. I have a son that did pest control for a full time job - possum monitoring (of course he had to kill everything in his trap lines). He loved it. You'd perhaps be surprised how many NZers love working in the bush (and have no mercy when it comes to the pests!).
Perhaps he need to take a trip up to the Coromandel , or the Karangahake , where pines are transitioning to natives quite nicely , and are living up to 100 years. Where it is necessary to intervene is pest control , and with species like Wattle that provide alot denser canopy cover. Some pines can be removed by been ring barked and left to fall to speed things up . And issue is a lack of soil left on the hilltops since intial clearing.
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.