Press Releases – CAFCA
New Zealand’s commitment to the flawed Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is causing environmental, economic and social damage as foreign companies buy up productive farmland to plant pine forests.The Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA) says the sale of farmland to overseas interests who aim to convert it to forestry is by far the most common type of consent that the Overseas Investment Office now issues.
CAFCA Secretary Murray Horton says foreign companies are eager to convert hill country farms to forests it in order to make a quick buck by selling carbon credits to polluters under the ETS.
“Flogging off Aotearoa’s New Zealand’s forestry rights goes back to the 1980s, when the Rogernomics Labour government sold cutting rights to overseas companies. It was only the Treaty of Waitangi that stopped them from selling the Crown land that the forests grew on,” he says.
“Since the creation of the ETS in 2008, however, the Government has approved the sale of a huge amount of private agricultural land to overseas companies – much of it sheep and beef farms in eastern regions of the North Island”.
“Stuff journalist Marty Sharpe has done a deep dive into the Overseas Investment Office’s records, and he says over the past ten years more than 95,000 hectares of land has been approved to be sold to overseas companies for $781 million”.
Corporates Invade
The two biggest buyers are connected with Ikea, so large corporations are getting in on the act.,” saysMurray Horton.
Critics say the practice of covering hillsides in fast-growing, shallow rooted pinus radiata trees creates a number of problems for both rural communities and the environment. It takes jobs out of local economies and stifles biodiversity, which threatens native species.
Sharpe’s Stuff article quotes Federated Farmers spokesperson Toby Williams, who says forestry does provide some jobs when the trees are planted and much later, when they are harvested. But it does not provide as many jobs as farming.
Federated Farmers’ Toby Williams says, while planting trees on the steepest, most unproductive land can make good sense financially and environmentally, converting whole farms to pines does not.
“It only adds up economically because of the ETS subsidies, which foreign companies are treating as a cash cow”, he says.
Clear Felling of Pines and Bared Earth/Slash/Siltation policy – Marlborough Sounds
ETS Failure
Murray Horton says that along with its economic drawbacks, the whole framework of offsetting emissions by purchasing carbon credits does not address the root cause of climate change.
“Manufacturers, airlines and other businesses can offset carbon dioxide emissions by purchasing carbon credits, which allows them to escape sanctions and carry on polluting,” he says. “Because of this the European Union now says companies that rely on carbon offsetting cannot claim to be carbon zero.”
Murray Horton says, for this reason Commissioner for the Environment Simon Upton wants to phase out the ETS scheme. According to Upton, forests would have to remain unharvested virtually forever to offset carbon dioxide emissions.
“This is clearly not possible, since trees have a natural lifespan, not to mention the growing threats of fire, flooding and disease caused by climate change,” says Murray Horton.
“Ask people in Tairawhiti and Hawkes Bay about the downstream effects of planting vast areas of hill country in pine plantations. Slash and logs from clear-fell harvesting devastated farms and beaches and cost lives when cyclones caused floods there in 2023.”
Wilding Pines
Radiata pine trees are also very flammable which can have disastrous consequences. The people of Christchurch have watched the Port Hills catch fire and burn two times in recent years largely because some of the hillsides are planted in pines. Wilding pines also create a whole other set of problems he adds.
In summary the sale of farmland to overseas interests to plant monoculture pine plantations can create a perfect storm that is bad for the economy, bad for the environment and bad for people says Murray Horton.
An OECD report – echoing the Climate Change Commission before it – said carbon farming was risky because trees were not permanent and it could create a boom and bust cycle in the carbon market – and the forests are unkempt, a fire risk and a thriving nursery for wilding pine spread.
Vast areas of our productive countryside are being swallowed up by foreign companies, syndicates for conversion to large scale pine plantations, driven by the increasing price of carbon i.e. greed. It’s short-term expediency, environmentally a disaster with fire risk, wilding pine seeding already costing millions and depleting stream and river flows. Pines are very thirsty!
Large areas of Gisborne have gone to pine trees. A recent one is Waipaoa Station. ORIGINALLY 33,000 acres now lost to pines. Huiarua went some time ago 28,000 acres and Ihungia 11,000 ac. Also, Hore Hore 4,500 ac. Tragic. Crazy.