Foresters get carbon credit issue on agenda

The Government is to discuss its appropriation of carbon credits as part of secret talks with forest owners on the costs of the Kyoto climate change treaty.

It has been brought to the negotiating table because a dearth of new tree planting is undermining New Zealand's ability to met its obligations under the agreement.

Meanwhile, a ban on officials entering forests to collect data is hampering the Government's ability to collect the credits.

Although the discussions are supposed to be secret and the ground rules require "no surprises in the media", the Kyoto Forestry Association has outlined the terms of reference of the discussions in a newsletter to its members.

A spokeswoman for Forestry Minister Jim Anderton described this as "unhelpful".

The newsletter says the discussions include the two most sensitive areas in what have become fraught relations between forest owners and the Government.

One is the "forest sink" credits New Zealand earns under Kyoto's rules, which recognise the value of carbon dioxide taken out of the atmosphere by trees planted since 1990 on land not already forested.

The owners of those forests consider the value of those credits, which under present policy is retained by the Government, has been confiscated from them.

They say this is one of the main reasons new planting has dwindled to almost nothing from a peak of 100,000ha 10 years ago.

The other issue is the liability Kyoto imposes on the country when a forest is felled but not replanted.

The Government has said that so long as less than 10 per cent of the land harvested is deforested it will pick up the bill.

But there are concerns in the industry that the 10 per cent cap will be breached, encouraging more deforestation ahead of 2008 when Kyoto comes into effect.

The Government has been under increased pressure since it disclosed in June revised estimates that Kyoto obligations would cost the taxpayer around $500 million, instead of it being a net seller of carbon credits.

In addition, forest owners are denying officials access to forests which they need to monitor the rate at which carbon is being locked up.

The Government needs internationally credible data on this to claim the forest sink credits, which are viewed by forest owners as the only reason New Zealand could afford to ratify the Kyoto Protocol

"Our ban has Treasury and other senior Government officials sweating," the newsletter says. "Our monitoring ban will remain in place until all matters are resolved."

In the meantime forest owners have suspended a publicity campaign about their grievances.