New Zealand Institute of Forestry (NZIF)
Te PÅ«tahi NgÄherehere o Aotearoa Inc.
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8 October 2008
Time To Stop Blaming Cobalt Deficiency And Incomplete Analysis For Deforestation In The Central North Island.
"It is time for politicians and farm leaders to stop using knowledge of cobalt deficiency and incomplete economic
analysis as excuses for deforestation", says Andrew McEwen, President of the NZ Institute of Forestry. He was responding
to comments made by Chris Kelly, Chief Executive of Landcorp, on National Radio on Tuesday that the forests his company
was converting to dairy farms north of Taupo were only established because there was no known cure for stock "bush
sickness". His comments reflected similar ones made by the Minister of Forestry and Agriculture, Jim Anderton, speaking
as leader of the Progressive Party at the Institute's "meet the political party forestry spokespeople" in Wellington on
Monday evening and previously by Pete Hodgson a few years ago when, as Minister for Climate Change, he said "the trees
were planted in the wrong place".
"Bush sickness on the Central North Island pumice soils was found to be caused by cobalt deficiency in the early 1930s.
By 1937, topdressing large areas of deficient land became the norm, virtually eliminating bush sickness", says Dr
McEwen. "All of the trees that have been deforested in the last few years were planted since that time, so there must
have been some other reason for their establishment."
A detailed study1 in the 1960s by agricultural and forestry economists of a Waikato land development scheme demonstrated
that, at that time, forestry would generally give a better return than agriculture. There were differences in the
relative performance depending on assumptions of social costs (such as effects on rural communities). "The study
compared agriculture and forestry over the full life of a forest crop - rather different from using a relatively short
period of high prices to say that agriculture is superior, while all the poor years are ignored", said Dr McEwen. "But
the study did not include environmental costs, and we now have significant evidence of the effect of land use on these".
As early as 1967, there were warnings about the damaging consequences of large scale agricultural development in the
Taupo basin2. But a plea that such land development should not be permitted was ignored. Now central and local
government are contributing $82 million to assist in the cost of reversing the declining quality of Lake Taupo (and
another $72 million for similar problems in the Rotorua lakes). In July this year, Environment Waikato released a
critical report3 on the state of soil and water resources in the region, which echoed similar findings by the
Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment in his 2004 "Growing for Good" report4. "Will those who have caused the
problem be asked to pay to clean up the waterways?" asks Dr McEwen. A 2006 study5 on the effect of land use change on
the flood hydrology of pumice catchments (and particularly the one in which State-owned Landcorp is converting forest to
farm, an operation for which no resource consent was required) found that such conversions will result in substantial
increases in peak discharge during high rainfall events - and that could create the need for increased river maintenance
work to stop-banks in the Waikato River. "Has Landcorp incorporated these costs in its analysis and will its client pay
them?"
Add such costs to the liabilities arising from greenhouse gas emissions and we conclude that substantial environmental
costs can be associated with some land uses. "As long as society is prepared to fund these costs, we will continue to
hear the cry that 'the trees are in the wrong place - agriculture is more profitable than forestry'", says Dr McEwen.
"This will inhibit the search for and uptake of more environmentally friendly land use practices. A more complete
economic analysis, that incorporates society's subsidy for environmental effects, is likely to show very different
relativities and is long overdue."
ENDS