𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗚𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁'𝘀 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗯𝗼𝗻 𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘆 𝗿𝘂𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝘄𝗼𝗻𝘁 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 This week the Government had a chance to stop our productive farmland and rural communities being completely overrun by pine trees – and they blew it. Farmers were promised that whole-farm conversions to carbon forestry would be brought to an end but the rules, as they’re currently written, won’t even come close to achieving that goal. Unfortunately, what’s being proposed completely misses the mark and will achieve only a minor reduction in whole-farm conversions. Unless the Minister steps in and makes urgent changes, we’ll continue to see our productive hill country swallowed up by permanent pine forests at an alarming rate. The Government are currently proposing to put a 25% cap on registering forestry in the Emissions Trading Scheme – but that will apply only to land classes 1 – 5. That might sound like progress on paper, but in reality only 12% of carbon farming conversions have happened on that land anyway. The remaining 88% of conversions have been on classes 6 and 7 – on which two-thirds of this country’s sheep and beef farmers operate. These farms are the engine room of the agricultural industry. So, what protections do they get under the new rules? Practically none. Instead, we get a 15,000-hectare annual lottery for class 6 land and open slather on class 7. That’s not a ‘ban’ – it’s business as usual for the big polluters and foreign investors looking to blanket our hills in pine trees. This isn’t forestry that creates jobs or exports either. It’s permanent carbon farming, propped up by a market that gives big emitters a licence to pollute while rural communities carry the cost. Let’s be clear: Federated Farmers are not anti-forestry. When timber prices were strong 20-30 years ago, the right trees went in the right places – and we supported that. Growing trees for genuine timber production is one thing, but losing that land to permanent carbon forests is another. Once you lose a productive sheep and beef farm to carbon forestry, it’s gone for good. If the Government is serious about slowing carbon conversion, the 25% cap must apply to all land classes, including LUC 6 and 7 where most of our members farm. Otherwise, the damage doesn’t stop – it just shifts to the back blocks, and to the farmers and families who live and work there. New Zealand is now at a crossroads – and Minister Todd McClay has a very important choice to make: will he back farmers and food production, or the polluters gaming a broken system? He can’t have it both ways – I just hope he makes the right decision.