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October 13, 2023
Māori foresters join fight on ETS charges
Adam Gifford
Posted On October 13, 2023
Download AudioNgā Pou a Tāne – the National Māori Forestry Association has joined other forestry sector owners in seeking an urgent judicial review of a new fee regime for the emissions trading scheme.
Chair Te Kapunga Dewes says the Ministry for Primary Industries has imposed a new administrative fee of $30 a hectare a year, which for the average Maori forestry block means about $3000 a year.
He says that cost increase of about 15 percent reduces opportunities for the owners of remote and marginal Maori land to participate in the wood or carbon markets.
“While we were given compensation and land and tree assets as part of settlement processes across the country and we will continue to accumulate more, the value of that compensation has been eroded significantly by the application of this,” Mr Dewes says.
Among other things the judicial review is challenging the way owners were given a 30-day deadline until October 17 to decide whether to leave their forests in the ETS, which was completely unrealistic for a single landowner let alone a Maori trust with a large number of owners.
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