Both sides of a climate-related forestry debate say the other can’t see the wood for the trees. David Williams reports
The car darts along a tree-lined section of Dyers Pass Rd, on the Port Hills, glimpses of south-west Christchurch below.
At the time of Pākēha settlement, Ōtautahi was unusual, Mark Belton says from the passenger seat, because it was virtually treeless, except for small patches at Riccarton Bush and Papanui.
At the time, trees were moving around the world “big-time”, he says. Not just the familiar trees from Britain and Europe, but North America, and elsewhere.
“Christchurch has ended up with arguably the greatest variety of trees of any city on the planet, in a very short period of time, which is extraordinary.”
Belton is a director of Permanent Forests NZ, a consultancy specialising in carbon offsets from long-lived forests. As Te Heru-o-Kahukura (Sugarloaf) looms above, Belton talks of a shadow that has fallen over his livelihood.
Trees grow well in this area, he says, but discussions about the types of trees have become controversial.
What does he mean? In his view, these conversations are now laced with “bias”, which is “distorting things”.
The culmination is a Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) consultation – submissions on which close this afternoon – that suggests restricting exotic forests in a new category within the Emissions Trading Scheme for permanent forests (planted after 1989).
It will, he says, “kill any chance of marginal and environmentally problematic farmland being profitably developed to grow long-lived forests for carbon sequestration”.
Belton’s view is if you’re planting trees to sequester carbon you can’t beat exotics for growth and price. (In saying that, his company also consults on native plantings.)
“The growth of these introduced tree species is quite extraordinary and considerably greater than it is for indigenous species, which just happen not to have the right DNA for the climate we have today in the drier, eastern part of the South Island, in particular.”
This week, via email, he expands on his earlier description. He labels the MPI plan a “bizarre ‘natives only’ plan”, driven by sentiment rather than science.
As human-induced warming changes the climate, and countries grapple with how to reduce or offset greenhouse gas emissions, it’s an important conversation. Belton’s views seem as hard as a gnarled trunk – and the opposite side is just as firm.
Retired forest ecologist Larry Burrows, who used to work for Manaaki Whenua/Landcare Research, says having permanent forests as natives-only is “absolutely essential”. He listens to Belton’s main points and then says: “I think that Mark’s completely wrong on every one of them.”
In fact, there’s slight agreement on one point, and even a concession. But on the conundrum created by carbon-absorbing conifers, amidst a climate emergency, the country – and the world – has little time to consider its options.
If not for trees, New Zealand would be more of a climate pariah.
The country’s gross greenhouse gas emissions increased 26 percent between 1990 – the base year used in international climate negotiations – and 2019, which is shameful and internationally embarrassing. It would have been worse but 600,000 hectares of forests planted in the 1990s counted against our net emissions.
(By the latest count, net emissions over the same period rose 33.5 percent.)
Several problems emerge.
New Zealand has 1.74 million hectares of plantation forest, 96 percent of which is radiata pine and douglas fir. But large swathes are now more than two decades old, and reaching harvest age.
Registered forest owners earn emissions trading scheme units while their trees are growing. At harvest, many of the units have to be paid back.
(Rod Oram wrote last year: “Replanting pines only restores the carbon lost from harvesting rather than increasing our sequestration; and even if the pines are in permanent forests, they store minimal carbon in their later decades and have far shorter lives than native species.”)
This makes “permanent” forests – those not intended to be chopped down for at least 50 years – a more attractive investment. They’re even more enticing now, consider unit prices more than doubled in a few years, to more than $80 earlier this year.
At those prices, MPI estimates permanent exotic forests have an investment return of about $30,000 a hectare – almost seven times the returns of sheep and beef farming, and 50 percent higher than production forestry.
It’s expected more than 645,000 hectares of exotic forests might be planted this decade, with more than half permanent forests. Escalating unit prices could encourage more exotic plantings, which might actually help New Zealand meet emissions reduction targets.
“Although exotic forestry helps reduce our net emissions quickly and at low cost, there are likely to be significant trade-offs for our economy and the environment in the long-term,” Forestry Minister Stuart Nash and Climate Change Minister James Shaw said in the MPI discussion paper.
They’re worried about the spectre of douglas firs and pinus radiata covering productive agricultural land, and also a successful offset industry reducing the incentives to actually cut emissions.
(The Climate Change Commission said relying heavily on forestry “would make maintaining net zero long-lived emissions beyond [2050] more difficult”.)
Ministers Nash and Shaw said: “We need to ensure our land use incentives achieve the best outcomes for our environment, economy, and local communities, in the short, medium, and long term.”
A new permanent forest category will be added to the emissions trading scheme next year. The proposal is to restrict exotic forests in the new ETS category, while accepting they may be appropriate in some circumstances.
This topic won’t come as a surprise to regular Newsroom readers, who will have read Dame Anne Salmond’s columns advocating for nature-based forests, and called carbon farming with pine forests a “folly”, and contrary to international scientific advice.
Belton, of Permanent Forests NZ, calls the discussion paper plan a “bombshell proposal”.
Your correspondent’s car crests Dyers Pass (Pukeatua, or hill of the gods), and descends towards Whakaraupō/Lyttelton Harbour in a valley Māori call Parakiraki, which translates to: the very dry place. We’re heading to an early colonial-era farm to talk trees.
Loudon was part of the wider property owned by John and Mary Gebbie – after whom Gebbies Pass is named – established in the 1850s, and broken up in the 1890s. The property, named after the Gebbie family’s Scottish origins, once stretched from Teddington (Tau Wharepaka), on the flat, up to Mt Herbert (Te Ahu Pātiki). Some trees at Loudon date back to the 1870s.
In 1995, the 915-hectare property was bought by Philip King and Sarah Lovell-Smith. Last year, the highest 500 hectares, taking in Mt Herbert and Mt Bradley were sold to the Rod Donald Banks Peninsula Trust after a whirlwind crowdfunding campaign.
Today, we’ve got our own whirlwind – a quick tour of tree plantings.
“We started planting to complement the existing trees that were here almost straightaway,” King says.
There’s a 34-hectare block of radiata, Douglas-fir and eucalypts planted in 1995, and covenanted as a permanent carbon forest.
Two years ago, a further 100 hectares affected by dense gorse were planted in radiata and eucalypts. (Belton enthuses about eucalypts, saying if you see a tree two-thirds the size of an adjoining radiata pine, the eucalypt will have about 50 percent higher wood density.)
“It’s not very good for farming,” King says of the planted land. “We’d spend a lot of money spraying it from the air.”
The cost of fencing, spraying, clearing by root raking, and planting, was about $420,000.
“I get a huge kick out of walking around them and watching them grow.”
It’s worked before. He invested in a 250-hectare plantation forestry block north of Napier in 1993. When it was sold to Pan Pac Forest Products two years ago the internal rate of return was 11 percent.
Leasing parts of Loudon earns a pitiful income, King says. Which makes his income from ETS units “a hugely important financial adjunct”.
“But it’s a bit like buying shares, you know – companies go up and down, the sharemarket goes up and down, carbon will go up and down.”
Belton says the proposal to exclude exotics from permanent forests imperils the 100 hectares of new planting which could sequester about 1250 tonnes of carbon per hectare over 50 years. At a $100 carbon unit price, earnings could be $250,000 a year on otherwise unproductive land.
Spread that over an estimated one million hectares of marginal farmland up and down the country, and the forgone opportunity cost quickly adds up.
In our earlier car ride, Belton sets out his arguments.
The average cost of planting natives is about 10-times higher than introduced tree species.
In Parakiraki valley, he points to a hillside with natural regeneration of natives. “It’s hardly moved in 50 years.”
The success of radiata pines means there’s no question of milling native forests for timber, he says. Our export market means there’s less demand for overseas native forests, too.
The income figures are compelling. At current prices, timber forestry on its own has a return of 2-3 percent on investment, he says. But add carbon farming – using averaging on the first 16 years of tree growth – and the rate of return on land costing $5000 to $10,000 a hectare jumps to 10-12-14 percent.
Keeping exotics out of permanent forestry, especially given the climate emergency declared by the Government, is “complete insanity”, Belton says.
He predicts it won’t lead to large-scale planting in natives. Agriculture commentator Keith Woodford warns of unintended consequences.
“We need sustainable solutions.” – Larry Burrows
In a similarly staccato way, Burrows, the retired forest ecologist, lays out his concerns about exotics. Fire-risk, monoculture, the spread of wilding pines, and forests displacing productive agricultural land.
Plantation forests have been portrayed as a simple solution, he says, but it’s a case of instant gratification. “These trees have been bred to grow fast but then you cut them down.”
(Salmond points out native trees like totara grow for 800-900 years.)
It’s important to remember the benefits of native trees extends beyond carbon sequestration, he says, to the intangibles of biodiversity and conservation.
Burrows also has a crack at “fast carbon”. Permanent native forests sequester more carbon than fast-growing exotics, he says, “they just do it slower”. “And we need sustainable solutions.”
One way to address the slowness of natives is to set aside a larger area.
Buying native seedlings is more expensive than exotics, Burrows agrees. The key thing here is that there’s only a tiny extent of planted natives across the country, maybe a few thousand hectares.
At the same time, it’s estimated there’s between a million hectares and 2.8 million hectares of native forest regenerating on its own. Why spend money planting trees when you can remove stock and shut the gate, and nature will work its magic? (Alongside pest and weed control.)
There’s a real bunfight, here. Remember what Belton said about the glacial pace of native regeneration in Parakiraki valley? He adds: “So you’ll read often optimistic accounts of people saying they’re going to allow natural regeneration to do the job. It doesn’t, you know, it is so slow.”
Not all land is the same, Burrows says.
He accepts there are some places – the middle of the Canterbury Plains is a classic example – where regeneration won’t happen, and planting is the only way. Those places are generally too dry in summer, too cold in winter, and not close to seed sources.
In other places, however, like a block north of Kaikōura he’s working on, “just want to turn back into forest on its own”.
Another point of diversion between the two forest experts is on gorse. Burrows says gorse can be a nurse crop for native forest – something that happened at Hinewai Reserve on Banks Peninsula. Belton isn’t a believer.
Burrows thinks it’s too difficult to get native offset blocks into the ETS, and that’s holding back a potential premium in the carbon unit price for owners.
In the discussion document, Ministers Nash and Shaw state: “Decisions we make now on permanent forestry will be critical for our future environmental sustainability, economic growth, and the wellbeing of our people and communities.”
Back at Loudon, King mulls the price of carbon units.
He recalls the unit price was about $12 a tonne when his 1995 forest was registered in the ETS. The price dropped as low as $1.60, however, as New Zealand companies sought offshore credits, revealed as “fraudulent”, in a bid to offset emissions.
Late last year, the Government announced its new Paris climate agreement target – known as a nationally determined contribution – to reduce net emissions in 2030 to 50 percent below gross emissions in 2005.
However, it’s estimated there’ll still be a gap of 147 million tonnes. Two-thirds of that is expected to be offset by “offshore mitigation”.
Why not spend that money here, King wonders.
The Government’s plans to restrict exotic plantings entering the emissions trading scheme will create huge uncertainty, he says.
The situation has prompted conversations with his friends, who generally stick to sheep and beef farming, and “know what they know about politicians”.
“A couple of them have said to me, with a smile, ‘Are you worried now?’
“I say, well, no, I’m not really because ... that’s a long-term investment.”
