Tree planters slate farmers

BY HAYLEY GALE

A Wellington couple who bought a block of marginal farmland in Golden Bay to create a carbon sink have criticised Federated Farmers for "denying what every reputable climate scientist is saying about global warming".

Jonathan Kennett and Bronwen Wall bought 47 hectares in the Rameka Valley, 10 kilometres from Takaka, in May last year. Last week, along with local conservation volunteers, they celebrated the completion of the first stage of a long-term project that will benefit the community as well as the environment.

Known as Project Rameka, the couple set up a trust managed by an incorporated society, whose members have planted more than 1800 native trees, helped by children from Motupipi and Golden Bay High schools.

Local volunteers have also built a track for mountainbikers and walkers, dubbed Great Expectations. The 2.3km track, which offers an extension to the popular Rameka track, is now open to the public.

Further native tree planting, to soak up more carbon from the atmosphere, is ongoing.

While the couple have praised local volunteers and neighbouring farmers for supporting the project, they have criticised Federated Farmers and big business, which they said had lobbied to make the "watered-down" Emissions Trading Scheme under the National Government a sham.

Highlighting the newest "shocking" reports by climate change experts, which predict that sea levels will rise one metre by 2100 and that temperatures could increase by four degrees Celsius by the end of the century, Mr Kennett called for urgent action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

"But instead, Federated Farmers has an abysmal approach to climate change. They just want business as usual, and that is so short-sighted. They are denying what every reputable climate scientist is saying about global warming," he said.

The couple joined the Permanent Forest Sink Initiative, a stand-alone scheme that enables "carbon farmers" to get paid for planting forests. In the past year, the regenerating forest and pines on their land have absorbed an estimated 500 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

They will earn a certain number of carbon credits under the scheme – but ironically, says Mr Kennett, the polluters responsible for carbon emissions will be paid more under the Emissions Trading Scheme, as now proposed by the Government.

"They'll be paid to pollute the planet. It makes the scheme a complete sham," he said.

Mr Kennett, the author of Classic New Zealand Mountain Bike Rides, and Ms Wall, an editor of children's books, visit their Golden Bay property about four times a year, travelling part of the way by bicycle.

Responding to the couple's comments, Golden Bay Federated Farmers spokesman Graeme Ball said the organisation was taking the climate change issue "very seriously".

"We are doing everything we can to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from farms, but the Emissions Trading Scheme as it stood under the previous government was unaffordable for farmers," Mr Ball said.

He said farmers were paying a considerable amount, with government assistance, for research into reducing greenhouse gas emissions from farms, which was mostly methane from cows. "But a lot of science still needs to be done to give us the tools to reduce those emissions."

- © Fairfax NZ News