Summarised by Centrist
Federated Farmers and Beef + Lamb New Zealand say the Environment Select Committee has missed its chance to stop productive farmland being lost to carbon forestry.
A proposal to tighten exemptions allowing newly converted land to enter the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) after 4 December 2024 has not addressed the main problem, according to Richard Dawkins, chair of Federated Farmers’ meat and fibre section.
“The government had a chance to stop our productive farmland and rural communities being completely overrun by pine trees – and they blew it,” he said.
The select committee recommended a 25% limit on how much farmland can be registered for carbon credits, but it only applies to the best-quality land, known as classes 1 to 5. That’s not where most conversions are happening. Richard Dawkins from Federated Farmers says just 12% of carbon farms have gone on that type of land. “The remaining 88% of conversions have been on classes 6 and 7,” he said. “That’s where most sheep and beef farmers operate, and they’re left with almost no protection under the new rules.”
Beef + Lamb NZ chair Kate Acland said the failure to fix land class rules means “the door [is] wide open for the continued wholesale conversion of productive sheep and beef farmland into carbon farms.”
