The National party in New Zealand has pledged to turn around the current rates of deforestation if it is elected to government.
National’s forestry spokesman Shane Ardern said a National government would:
- * Establish a forestry offset scheme, subject to an assessment of its costs
- * Negotiate to include offset schemes for plantation forests in international climate change agreements
- * Encourage tree planting in small forests and farms
- * Streamline and simplify the Resource Management Act
Mr. Ardern said: “In the past four years, deforestation has run out of control. In 2007, a shocking 35 percent of felled forests were not replanted. This deforestation is a direct consequence of Labour’s disastrous forestry and climate change policies which have alienated and divided the forestry industry.”
However, the stipulation regarding “costs” has attracted criticism. When questioned by New Zealand’s National Business Review, Ardern confirmed that the policy does not include any plans to introduce an offsetting programme before the Kyoto rules (which do not make provision for offset planting) can be renegotiated.
Pre-1990 forest owners do not have their deforestation liabilities subsidised by the state, and it is unlikely a National government would offer such a subsidy.
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