Unprecedented Turnouts Say "No" to Confiscation

KYOTO FORESTRY ASSOCIATION
MEDIA STATEMENT

Thursday 22 February 2007
For Immediate Release

Unprecedented Turnouts at MAF Meetings Deliver Unanimous "No" to Government Confiscation Plans

An unprecedented number of forest owners and investors have turned out to MAF consultation meetings to give a unanimous "no" to Government plans to confiscate Kyoto carbon credits and impose massive new taxes on the industry, the Kyoto Forestry Association (KFA) said today.

KFA spokesman Roger Dickie, who has attended all the meetings so far, said more than 700 people had attended the MAF meetings in Gisborne, Nelson, Hamilton, Hastings and Whangarei.

The Government plans to hold further meetings over the next three weeks in Rotorua, New Plymouth, Palmerston North, Masterton, Christchurch, Invercargill, Greymouth, Dunedin, Auckland, South Auckland and Wellington.

"In more than 30 years in the forestry industry, I have never known such turnouts to industry events - and I've never seen such anger against government policies from the grassroots," Mr Dickie said.

"More than 700 people have turned out so far. There has been unanimous opposition to the Government's plans and the Hastings and Whangarei meetings passed unanimous resolutions condemning the Government's confiscation plans."

The resolution passed unanimously at the Hastings and Whangarei meetings was:

"That this meeting condemns the Governments proposal to:

* confiscate the carbon credits belonging to owners of post 1990 forests, and

* retrospectively tax the owners of pre 1990 forests if they change the land use of their properties."

Mr Dickie noted that Government Ministers have resorted to personal abuse in Parliament and in the media in response to the high turnouts, but he said that would do nothing to change the fact that deforestation was occurring in New Zealand and that the confiscation of the carbon credits was to blame.

He said it was time for the Government to start listening to the one industry capable of sequestering carbon or else abandon its carbon neutrality goal.

"The Prime Minister wants New Zealand to be carbon neutral but her Government's policies have led to New Zealand's total forest cover falling for the first time in living memory. In 2005, for example, just 6,000 hectares of new forestry was planted, far less than the amount converted to other land uses such as dairying. We are now more than 400,000 hectares behind where we could have been had planting levels not fallen off so dramatically."

Mr Dickie said there was no doubt the collapse in plantings was caused by investors losing confidence in the Government's commitment to forestry.

"Through the 1990s, forestry investors were told they would gain financially from sequestering carbon by planting trees, and were stunned when the Government decided it would simply confiscate the $2.5 billion of carbon credits they had subsequently earned."

Mr Dickie said it was ridiculous for the Government to now say forestry investors do not own those credits.

"It was forestry investors who earned those credits by planting trees and sequestering carbon - and it is forestry owners who could, if they chose, chop down those trees tomorrow and destroy those same carbon credits. That is the essence of a property right and it is appalling that the Government denies that truth, even in Parliament."

Mr Dickie said Climate Change Minister David Parker had breezily dismissed the prospect of people removing their trees.

"That is not an idle threat but simple commercial logic that is being followed even by the Government's own SOE, Landcorp," he said.

"Not even the Government's own forestry company has confidence in its policies."

Mr Dickie said tree planting would only resume when confidence was restored in the industry. That relied on the Government committing to implementing the six-point plan agreed last year by the New Zealand Forest Owners Association (NZFOA), the New Zealand Farm Forestry Association (NZFFA), the Federation of Maori Authorities (FOMA) and KFA, after work with Government officials.

The plan included recognition of the industry's property rights. All political parties are being asked to endorse the plan for their election manifestos for the 2008 election.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

The New Zealand Forestry Industry's Six-Point Plan

1. Remove the inequitable, retrospective 'deforestation cap'.

2. Allow land owners with Kyoto-qualifying forests (forests planted from 1990) - as well as those replanting non-Kyoto forests after harvest - to financially benefit from the value of the carbon their forests remove from the atmosphere.

3. Introduce broad-based carbon charges, ensuring that all emitters of greenhouse gases face the same opportunity costs.

4. Ensure that New Zealand's Kyoto policies have the best long-term outcomes for New Zealand, even if they don't exactly mirror current Kyoto rules.

5. Develop a regime which puts a value on the environmental attributes of forestry, thereby encouraging investment in the sector.

6. Act immediately.

New Zealand Forest Plantings 1990-2005

Year Hectares
1990 16,000
1991 15,000
1992 50,000
1993 62,000
1994 98,000
1995 74,000
1996 84,000
1997 64,000
1998 51,000
1999 40,000
2000 34,000
2001 30,000
2002 22,000
2003 20,000
2004 11,000
2005 6,000

Source:
http://www.climatechange.govt.nz/resources/reports/projected-balance-emissions-jun06/html/fig-1.html

ENDS

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