Shellwood Forest co-owners Sid Soulsby and Tom Clarkson would like the option to leave some of their pine forest unharvested and get paid for the carbon the trees store. They are shocked to find 83 per cent of the forest is no longer considered eligible.
Eligibility to join the scheme depends on the vegetation on the land on December 31, 1989. If it was in forest it will not be eligible, and the definition of forest is a complex one.
The usual means of determining whether forest was present at that time is by looking at aerial and other photographs taken then.
The foresters say the difficult ETS entry process will put landowners off. They say Regional Development Minister Shane Jones has no chance of getting a billion trees in the ground in 10 years with MPI in the way.
Yet forestry is the most immediate means New Zealand has of offsetting its carbon emissions and meeting its international obligations, Forest Owners Association president Peter Clark says.
The former Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Dr Jan Wright, found forests can offset New Zealand's emissions from livestock on a scale no other current technology can manage.
"In an almost literal sense trees give us breathing space until the less emissions-intensive technologies and land-use practices are adopted," Mr Clark said.
New Zealand should have been planting more trees and growing the national forest estate for the last 10 years, he said.
"That was a missed opportunity."
