The Environmental Defence Society’s 2012 (EDS) national conference was called Growing Green: Transformation of farming, fishing and forestry. It was held recently one of the focus areas was how could the country improve forestry and speed the development of low carbon, low environmental impact goods and services. Sources: Voxy (NZ)
“Given the outcomes from previous EDS Conferences, which included the creation of the Land and Water Forum, we are keen to push on with new initiatives that will lift New Zealand’s environmental performance,” said EDS Chairman Gary Taylor.
“The forestry sector was especially open and frank in its presentations and revealed that some parts of New Zealand currently in plantation forests should not continue given steep terrain, highly mobile soils and difficulty of extraction.
“On the up side, exciting prospects of using trees to make New Zealand independent in liquid fuels were canvassed.”
Taylor said the conference concluded that urgent government action is needed to increase the price of carbon so that sequestration becomes viable.
In order to make this happen, Taylor said that the New Zealand Government needed to promulgate a National Environmental Standard on forestry. This is required before east coast forests come to their next harvesting cycle and should map areas for conversion to permanent native forests.
