KFA Launches Billboard Campaign Against Government Forestry Policies
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MEDIA STATEMENT
Friday 3 August 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
KFA LAUNCHES BILLBOARD CAMPAIGN AGAINST GOVERNMENT FORESTRY POLICIES
The Kyoto Forestry Association (KFA) today launched a billboard campaign to highlight the devastating economic and
environmental effects of the Government’s forestry policy of confiscating carbon credits from post-1990 forest owners.
The billboards, near Wellington and Auckland International Airports, show graphically that “Labour’s Forestry Policy” is
leading to deforestation and carry the message “Give New Zealand Forest Owners Back Our Carbon Credits and We’ll Get
Planting Again”.
They have been funded out of a voluntary $6/hectare levy on post-1990 forest owners.
KFA Spokesman Roger Dickie said it was planned for the billboards to be used regularly between now and the 2008 General
Election, depending on whether or not the Government’s proposed Electoral Finance Bill is passed in its current form.
“This is a very important matter of public policy,” Mr Dickie said. “Since the 2002 confiscation of $1.25 billion of our
carbon credits, new forest planting in New Zealand has plunged to below replacement levels, and we are now experiencing
deforestation for the first time in New Zealand’s history. Planting will not begin again until the confiscation is
reversed. All New Zealanders need to understand this if, as a nation, we are to successfully tackle climate change and
reduce our massive Kyoto deficit.”
Mr Dickie said the billboards were being placed near Auckland and Wellington airports so that they would be seen by as
many politicians, bureaucrats and senior journalists as possible.
Mr Dickie said that while Wellington International Airport Ltd had no problem with the design of the billboard, Auckland
International Airport Ltd had declined to carry politically-orientated advertisements on the grounds it is
partly-publicly and partly-privately owned. Options near to the airport are being considered by KFA, as are Christchurch
options.
Mr Dickie said that while KFA was not aligned to any political party, it had received strong support from the Maori,
ACT, National and Green parties and those concerned about the devastating effects of deforestation should consider
supporting one of these parties.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION: Introduction to Carbon Credits
Kyoto carbon credits are earned by those individuals and businesses that sequestered carbon by planting new forestry
since the Kyoto Protocol’s baseline of 1 January 1990, and by those industries which have cut their carbon emissions
since then.
Through the 1990s and early part of this decade, Government officials [See, for example, MAF Rural Bulletin June 2000:
http://www.kfoa.co.nz/maf.htm written by Kevin Steel, now Forestry Policy Advisor in Forestry Minister Jim Anderton’s
office. ] made clear that forestry investors would gain financially from the credits, which are a clear property right,
as confirmed by the Treasury. New Zealand Foreign Minister Phil Goff also told foreign governments that New Zealand
forest owners would own the credits. [See, for example, Cabinet PaperPOL (00) 26:
http://www.kfoa.co.nz/PDF/CAB%20100%202000.pdf
This fuelled a planting boom through the 1990s with 30,000 ordinary New Zealanders and forestry companies putting up as
much as $400 million per annum of their own risk capital to invest in more than 600,000 hectares of new forest – both
because of the benefits predicted to arise both from the sale of wood products and from carbon credits earned from
carbon sequestration.
Since the Government first indicated that it intended to confiscate the credits in 2002, tree planting in New Zealand
has plunged and New Zealand is now experiencing net deforestation for the first time in living memory.
The Government has previously indicated it would limit its confiscation of the credits to those associated with the
First Commitment Period of the Kyoto Protocol, costing forest owners nationwide as much as $2.5 billion, or $1.25
billion according to the Government’s calculations, depending on the market value of carbon credits. Now, however,
Government officials are indicating it may extend the confiscation to the Second Commitment Period, putting eventual
losses nationwide up to at least $8 billion.
The Government is also proposing a retrospective tax of up to $13,000 per hectare on the owners of forests planted
before 1 January 1990, if those forest owners decide to convert their land to another land use.
MAF has carried out a consultation process on these and other ideas to address climate change. The deadline for
submissions was 30 March and 3,500 were received. Other forest owners asked for an extension to this deadline but
Forestry Minister Jim Anderton refused.
The confiscation of the credits, the proposed retrospective tax and Mr Anderton’s handling of the forestry portfolio
have received near-unanimous condemnation at the MAF consultation meetings, with forest owners even in his home town of
Christchurch calling on him to resign.
More positively, the National, Green, Maori and ACT parties have broadly supported the forestry industry on the question
of carbon credits.
ENDS