Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says people can’t just rely on planting trees to meet New Zealand’s carbon emissions targets.
Maori foresters and the Carbon Forestry Group say proposed changes to the emissions trading scheme will cripple forestry and cost Maori billions of dollars in lost revenue because of a misguided obsession with reducing gross emissions.
Mr Hipkins says planting trees can’t be an alternative to reducing emissions.
“So the concern around the ETS is at the moment people are being incentivised just to offset their emissions, for example by planting more trees rather than actually reducing their emissions, and we need to do both of those things. The other thing we need to look at is where we are planting trees and what kind of trees we are planting. So in some areas where we have been planting permanent pine forests, for example, we should actually be restoring native forests instead,” he says.
Mr Hipkins says the proposals can still be changed, but it helps with the consultation to have a document out there.
