MEDIA STATEMENT
Monday 12 March 2007
For Immediate Release
Auckland Forestry Investors Buoyed by Green Party Support
The Green Party’s announcement today confirming that forest owners should receive some financial benefit from the carbon
their trees remove from the atmosphere will buoy Auckland-based forestry investors heading to tonight’s MAF land-use
consultation meeting at the Waipuna Hotel, the Kyoto Forestry Association (KFA) said today.
“When the Green Party speaks on climate change, the Labour-led Government should listen,” KFA spokesman Roger Dickie
said.
“Green Co-Leader Jeanette Fitzsimons’ comments clearly demonstrate she understands the commercial drivers of the
forestry industry. There is not a new generation of forestry investors waiting in the wings. The people who are most
likely to invest in forestry in the future are those who have invested in forestry in the past. You can’t expect the
50,000 New Zealanders who invested in new forests in the 1990s to invest in new planting in the future while the
Government has broken its promise that they should gain financially for the carbon they have already sequestered. How
our politicians deal with the carbon credit issue from the 1990s and early part of this decade will therefore determine
what tree planting we get next year and beyond.”
Mr Dickie said Ms Fitzsimons’ understanding of the commercial drivers of the forestry industry was in contrast to recent
comments by Forestry Minister Jim Anderton who appeared to condemn forestry investors for wanting to profit from their
trees.
“Sound climate change policy is about aligning the economics of an industry with the environmental outcomes the
Government, community and all of us want to see,” Mr Dickie said. “The Green Party understands that. In contrast, by
slagging people off for wanting to make a profit from planting trees, Mr Anderton risks fuelling deforestation and he
certainly won’t encourage the mum-and-dad investors who drove the planting boom of the 1990s to invest in more trees in
the future. Worse, if the perception develops that the Government doesn’t think people should be able to profit from
forestry, any remaining potential investors will run a mile.”
Tonight’s MAF consultation meeting at Mt Wellington’s Waipuna Hotel starts at 6.30 pm. KFA expects 250 people to attend.
ENDS