Federated Farmers vs Forestry and comments by NBR
Submitted by climaterealists on Mon, 02/08/2010 - 16:48
No country for farmers?
20 percent of New Zealand’s sheep and beef farms could be replaced by oxymoronic ‘carbon forestry’, if the ambitions of foreign owned carbon foresters and the Government are realised.
“Obviously the pending meat industry strategy has a new paradigm to assess, if the wishes of those who want to plant farm land in trees come to pass,” says Don Nicolson, Federated Farmers President.
“Don’t get me wrong, Federated Farmers strongly believes that farm forestry is an integral to farms where it’s suited. This makes the axing of the Afforestation Grants Scheme in preference to the Emissions Trading Scheme incredibly perplexing.
“Yet it’s the big overseas foresters that can’t see our food for the carbon. The likes of Ernslaw One (Malaysia), Blakeley Pacific (USA) and Rayonier New Zealand (USA) want to plant two million hectares of our farmland in trees.
“Two million hectares, if converted to carbon forestry, is a full fifth of New Zealand’s sheep and beef industry. What we are talking about is the loss of 2,800 farms, the loss of 11.4 million stock and the loss of another billion from our $5 billion sheep and beef industry.
“At this scale of planting, vulnerable regional economies, like the NorthIsland’s East Coast, would be levelled. It’s the human scale that is being lost.
“Carbon forestry doesn’t need the same labour force as a farm and in some instances, after planting will require none. What will become of the shearers, mechanics, stock and station agents, builders or vets?
“Trees won’t support the labour force farming does in the heartland. If large scale conversion to trees takes place, it’ll rip the heart out of our rural towns and provincial centres.
“We simply don’t wish to see our living towns become ghost towns. What we want is profitable farming instead of these misguided legislated incentives not to farm grasses or annual crops for human food production.
“And for what end I ask? So that these foreign-owned foresters who control 72 percent of our pine forests, can all benefit from our hard earned dollars?
“That’s why farmers from Gore to Gisborne are stirred up. Our industry is under direct attack from naked self-interest and Federated Farmers will not stand idle and will increasingly expose these flaws.
“Our great opportunity as a country is to feed more people not less. That Government can’t see the contradiction in its recently passed policy is a mystery,” Mr Nicolson concluded.
The Forestry reply
No Country for Old Men was a 2007 American crime thriller. It was highly praised by the critics when it came out and picked up numerous awards at the time. A media release put out this week by the Federated Farmers will be less savoured by the New Zealand forestry industry. It's headed, No Country for Farmers. The thrust of the Feds message is that "Foreign-owned "carbon foresters" have ambitions to turn a fifth of New Zealand sheep and beef farmland into forests that will devastate many rural towns."
Now that's attention seeking. Effective though. The press release goes onto say that a large chunk of
New Zealand's sheep and beef farms, 2 million hectares or 2800 farms could be threatened by "oxymoronic carbon forestry". As well as the spurious numbers being bantered around (at the new tree planting rates of the last few years it would take around 500 years to achieve 2 million hectares and that would require doubling the existing forest estate (which itself took 120 years to establish))this time, it's not only the Government in the firing line. They're also playing the foreign ownership of New Zealand's forests card too. How as a sector do we tackle these mistruth's - you might like to comment in this week's poll.NBR
NBR staff | Friday July 30, 2010 - 01:40pm
Private Bin’s amnesia award goes to Ernslaw One’s Peter Weir (owned by Malaysia) and Blakely Pacific’s Phil Taylor (owned in the US of A), who have spit the dummy over a Federated Farmers claim, foreign "carbon foresters" want to plant two million hectares of our farmland in their trees.
Private Bin understands the bat phone went berserk from Ernslaw One within a few moments of the Feds firing off their salvo while on-line, Blakeley Pacific is strenuously pushing its ‘strong kiwi connections’.
Yet their indignation about Feds mischief is disingenuous.
Private Bin asks if this is the same Peter Weir of Ernslaw One, who wrote in an APN affiliated paper on 30 June “…there are about 2 million hectares of such land in New Zealand; land that is suited more to forestry than agricultural farming but has not yet been planted”?
We further ask if this is the same Phil Taylor of Blakeley Pacific, who wrote in a major South Island Fairfax publication on 25 June, “…there are about two million hectares of such land in New Zealand - land that is suited more to forestry than agricultural farming, but has not yet been planted”?
If you can spot the difference, aside from style, we can’t.
On Private Bin’s own abacus however, Feds did get their sums wrong. 2 million hectares is actually 20.8% of sheep and beef farmland as of 2007 and not the 20% Feds claim.
Yet being a responsible newspaper committed to educating PR people, we need to point out to Messrs Weir and Taylor that duping editors by swapping author names on exactly the same opinion piece, diminishes your chances of ever getting into print again.
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