MPI questions Climate Commission’s native planting targets

Officials from the Ministry for Primary Industries told Forestry Minister Todd McClay the establishment of a long-term carbon sink of native trees was “unlikely to be achievable, even if desirable”.
Since 2021, the independent Climate Change Commission has advocated for the creation of this sink to offset emissions from industries like aviation and concrete where decarbonisation may prove difficult or impossible.
New Zealand should be planting 35,000 hectares of native trees each year from the middle of the next decade, the commission recommended. That would represent a significant increase on the estimated 7800 hectares planted in natives last year.
In an April briefing to McClay, advising on the latest draft reports from the commission, officials highlighted areas where the advice “would appear to be inconsistent with this Government’s emerging preferences in some areas”.
This included a reduction in the stocking rates of cattle and sheep, flat milk and declining meat production (though increasing profits) and “significant native afforestation (which is unlikely to be achievable, even if desirable)”.
Olivia Sullivan, the director of forestry systems at Te Uru Rākau – the New Zealand Forestry Service, said the comparative cost of native planting to pine trees meant the commission’s afforestation targets were unlikely to be met.
“Native afforestation is comparatively more expensive than exotic afforestation. While there are cheaper models for initial forests establishment (e.g., manuka), on-going management, pest control and enrichment planting will be needed in many cases for many of these forests to progress to maturity,” she said.
“Native afforestation offers a range of benefits including improving biodiversity and environmental outcomes, and for recreational, social, and cultural importance. However, their high costs and lower sequestration rates than exotic species means that in some instances, exotic afforestation and/or maintenance of the land in its existing use may be preferred depending on the outcomes sought by the land owner.”
However, one environmental organisation has already come up with a plan to supercharge native planting in New Zealand.
Simon Millar is the executive director of Pure Advantage, which launched the Recloaking Papatūānuku policy last year. He said the programme would see at least 2.1 million hectares of indigenous forest restored or reforested over a decade at a cost of $12 billion by 2050, when accounting for ongoing management of the land.
Crown funding would be needed for the policy, but could come in the form of loans which landowners would repay through ETS revenue earned via the carbon sequestered by the forests.
In total, Recloaking Papatūānuku could capture 1.5 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide by the end of the century, the equivalent of more than two decades of New Zealand’s present-day emissions. It would come at a cost of $32 per tonne out to 2050.
Millar said this made sense when New Zealand was already set to need to purchase 100 million offshore carbon credits to meet its Paris climate target at a price which could be more than $100 per tonne. The Treasury estimated the cost of meeting the Paris target could range from $3 to $24 billion this decade alone.
“If the political will was there to say, this would be a great thing for New Zealand’s current and future generations, its prosperity, ecological integrity, climate resilience, and put the settings in place to facilitate that plus some investment, then it’s not necessarily unachievable,” he said.
“If you had this level of aspiration, the land is available. With this funding and this scale of effort, you could achieve that. And it’s not just about planting, it’s about restoration, regeneration, holding onto the remnants we have, old growth forests, getting rid of the predators, as well as planting.”
Officials are working through how the Government might implement part of the Recloaking Papatūānuku scheme. In August, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts told Newsroom the Government is looking for ways to partner the private sector to plant trees on Crown land.
“This is a key component of Pure Advantage’s proposal and is something the Government is actively progressing,” he said.
Sullivan said Recloaking Papatūānuku needed further investigation as to the benefits it delivered and its achievability.
“Initial investigation suggests that some of the proposal’s assumptions appear to be optimistic, particularly estimation of costs and potential sequestration. The funding sources proposed in Recloaking Papatūānuku also require further investigation,” she said.
The forestry sector is also planning to plant fewer natives in coming years – the latest afforestation intention survey suggested native planting levels could fall below 1000 hectares by 2026.
To Millar, achievability is a matter of willpower.
“Everyone asks what are the constraints to more ambitious native afforestation and restoration? Basically, it’s funding and economics of natives. That can be solved. We’ve spent 100 years investing in pine forests and we’ve spent hardly anything on natives,” he said.
“If MPI are going to make a bland statement that it’s unachievable, they’re entirely incorrect. It’s a reductionist view.”