 You are hosted for this series of our regenerative future season two, Otato and the Heady, Our Forest, produced by Pure Advantage and Tarnes Tree Trust. For these webisodes, we're really grateful for the collaboration of the Edmund Hillary Fellowship. This year, Pure Advantage and Tarnes Tree Trust are exploring the role of native forests as a source of natural, spiritual and economic value. Through these conversations, we hope that we will get people thinking about the potential of native forests as a source of regenerative and restorative economic and spiritual and natural gain. In today's webinar, we'll be looking at the question of land. The Climate Change Commission has proposed that New Zealand plants 300,000 hectares of new native forest by 2035. Pure Advantage has gone even further, suggesting 1 million hectares of new native forest is achievable. That sounds great. Who doesn't want more native forest in New Zealand? Well, the question is, where would this land come from? Is it the so-called marginal land that's located on the steep and unfriendly slopes of some New Zealand farms? Will it come from expanding our conservation estate? Will it come from new commercial forests that might supplement or even replace some of our exotic commercial forests? To discuss this next question, I'm joined by a panel of three experts, Professor David Norton from Takura Nahiri, the School of Forestry at the University of Canterbury, Adele Fitzpatrick, Chief Executive of Project Crimson and Trees That Count, and James Treadwell, the President of New Zealand Institute of Forestry. Soon I'm going to let these fine folk introduce themselves, but just a bit of housekeeping first. We're happy to take your questions if you use the Q&A form on Zoom, and also check that chat window, because we will be adding information and links and responding to as many questions as we can. This is a forum, so your involvement is really important for us. There's a ton of great material on our website, which you can find at pureadvantage.org, and you can follow us on all the socials on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. And of course, we'll be back again next Tuesday with another episode. So to our guests, I'm going to invite our three guests to just give us a very quick summary of who they are, what they do and why native forests mean something to them. And perhaps Adele, we could start with you. Thank you, Vincent. Kia ora, everyone. I'm Adele Fitzpatrick. I'm the Chief Executive of Project Crimson Trust, and we run the Trees That Count program, which hopefully you've heard of. Native forestry and trees, every tree counts, is incredibly important to me. And our trust, Project Crimson, is 30 years old. It was started from the need to save the pūrkawa, which was almost extinct, which most people are surprised to hear about. So we are very engaged in helping all of New Zealand to be actively involved in planting native trees and restoring our forestry. Well, thank you, Adele. James, who are you and what do you do? Kia ora, everyone. Good evening. I am James Stregwell, and I am the President of the Institute of Forestry. That is basically the professional body of foresters. So we have approximately 900 members and increasing rapidly. We look at forests as all forests. So Exotok, as well as Native, and obviously have a pretty major concern about the emphasis on Exotok at the moment over Native. And I'm looking forward to this conversation. Thanks, Vincent. Thank you. David, same. Tell us who you are and why do Native forest mean, what do they mean to you? Thank you, and Kia ora, everybody. I work at the University Canterbury in Te Kura Ngahere, the School of Forestry there, and I've spent my whole life working and recreating in our native forests. I feel very passionate about native forests, and I enjoy sharing them with our students and also doing research and just being involved in native forests, and of course, tramping is my passion. So as a family, we spend a lot of time walking through native forests too. I guess my big interest these days is very much around restoring native forests, bringing native forests back, and particularly working with landowners in rural New Zealand, with farmers in terms of managing the remnants they have and trying to increase the area of native forests. Thanks, Vincent. Oh, you're welcome. Well, thank you and welcome, everybody, and thank you, our audience for joining us today. I think we've got some good numbers, so I look forward to this discussion. David, I want to start with you, actually. You know, the Tames Tree Trust has identified something like a million hectares of land that's on this steep erosion prone, sometimes called marginal land. That seems like a really good place to start planting native forests. What do you think of targeting that land for this effort of planting native forest? Yeah, it's a really good question, Vincent, and I think it's not as simple as just saying, well, let's put it all on marginal land because what does marginal land mean? Both from a forest point of view from what we want from our forests and from the perspective of the farmer whose land we're talking about, and I think we need to recognise that land that we regard as marginal often is an important part of a farm in the sense that it might be used at particular times of the year, for example during drought periods or something like that, so I can still be critical for the farming operation even though it isn't the most productive part of the farm, but I think more importantly than that, it's not the amount of forest we plant and putting it on those so-called marginal areas, it's where we put the forest that's important, and it's really thinking about what's already in the landscape, you know, how can we add trees into that landscape to maximise biodiversity values, to maximise cultural values, how can we improve connectivity, and yes, marginal land may well be part of that, but there'll be other parts of the landscape that are just as important and we really need to be putting trees into those areas as well, so to me it's not as simple as just saying there's a million hectares of marginal land that's planted up, to me it's more about saying well where are the best places to put those trees to get the best outcomes for biodiversity and for New Zealand as a whole. Tanei's tree trust also has this phrase, right tree, right place, and do you want to just explain that? Well definitely, I mean you'd plant a species that grows well on difficult sites, on difficult sites where you should plant a species that responds to fertility on fertile sites, so it's really thinking about what are the ecological attributes of the site, and then making sure that the trees that go into that site are the right trees for that site, and clearly that's driven by rainfall, it's driven by altitude, it's driven by soil fertility, and it's really getting the best outcome, I mean we plant the right trees in the sites they're suited to, we'll get the fastest growth, we'll get the best forest, we'll get the best outcome for biodiversity. I'm going to put you on the spot and say if you did target this so-called marginal land, and you know I realise that's a controversial word to say, because you know what is marginal, but let's say you're no land is marginal really, I mean all land's got a value. Yeah, yeah sure, but realistically could you could you fix on a number of the amount of hectares that you think is available for planting natives instead I suppose instead of pastoral farming? Again I'm not going to fix on a number because I think it depends on the way that that land is being used now and the way it can be used in the future. So if that land is just being used for biodiversity conservation, it's got a different value than say if it's being used for sustainable timber production as well as biodiversity conservation for carbon sequestration. So it would depend on how the land's going to be used and what the values are associated with that and how the person who's land it's on values those different things. Adele, in your efforts to find planters, what do you call them, planters? Planters, yes planting groups, landers, planting groups. I'm not even sure planters is a word, but anyway where are they finding pockets of land to plant these many trees, 700,000 trees I think you have already purchased and planted. Are there particular parts of the country that are getting more concentration of effort from trees that count? Yeah so trees that count is currently working with planting projects or planters. Let's call that a real word Vincent across the country and they range from community groups working on public land or land owners or iwi groups or schools you know so there's a whole range of projects and we work with around 730 different projects from the country, different sizes and they go from let's say 500 trees to 5000 trees so they are small pockets at the moment and they are really important because they are the trees that are popping up in our communities and that we get to experience generally within public land and that is great because it's within our neighbourhoods within our communities. We work with a lot of farmers as well who are very active in restoring their land and protecting their waterways and who have a real connection with the land as I believe most farmers do you know they connect with the land but I think there's a real opportunity there to be going bigger and to be operating at scale and the question now is how do we expand all of this? If you didn't expand if you work with the current regime and the I suppose the speed of planting that you're doing now how long would it take you to get to 300,000 hectares? Is it is that even possible? Yeah I think it probably is possible you know we are only limited at the moment by our funding so we have so we run a trees account is basically a two-sided marketplace we've taken funding for native trees and then we match that funding with planters who apply for the trees. We have many more planters applying for trees than we do funders so that tells me that we could double what we are doing easily next year so the land is there the willingness is there the planters are there the people who are wanting to do the hapmahi that they're all there they are just they're waiting and if I could double our income into our marketplace then I could meet that meet that need and let's say we you know trees account we've been operating for three or four years now every year we double year on year so if we continue to do that then you know really we could satisfy a large part of of New Zealand's requirements not so much the the largest scale that that is more of the you know to to the up to 5000 trees type of scale but if we were going to go beyond that that's a different story just do some maths for me maybe I'm not good at maths Vincent no I do words not numbers all right well I'm happy for anyone to answer this question how you've planted 700 000 trees what would that translate into numbers of hectares what's the density we could expect realistically okay this is this is an easy calculation for you and I do have a calculator handy and if we go on the the kind of rough calculation of let's say 3000 stems per hectare so it's what 700 divided by 3000 that's what that's only you know that's really that's only say 230 hectares hmm long way to go very long way to go very long way to go so so so to get there you know the implication James is that we need commercial in scale industrial scale planting to get to 300 000 does does that sound right to you I mean does does does 300 000 hectares sound like a big number to you as a commercial forester um I've made a planting year 300 000 is quite a lot that is quite a lot it's uh you know I mean we're talking 10 000 hectares a year if we want to meet the climate change commission's targets and I've heard people throw around a million a million hectares that's 100 000 hectares a year that's half of Kaungaroa now Kaungaroa is the largest man-made forest in the southern hemisphere so it's a lot it's a lot of trees to be planting um I sorry just qualify that James are you saying half the Kaungaroa every year or half in its entirety every year if you're looking for a million crikey 300 000 is bigger than Kaungaroa so let's put that in perspective so you know it's a big it's a big area of land that we're looking at um and I agree with Adele that it's possible um but it's not possible to sit there and say we're going to just put it on one area or we're just and I agree I agree with um David as well in terms of saying this on you know it's all on marginal land that's not going to happen we have to look at all land we have to look at riversides we have to look at urban we have to look everywhere if we're going to get to the number that we're talking about um now professional foresters can help with that um but you know our job is to is to make sure the trees grow and that they are managed well and looked after well and they survive the period to get to maturity where the land's coming from is a different cattle official together and that's that's a conversation that New Zealand has to have we've had we we in New Zealand look at land very uh strangely we look at land and say I bought a title of land and that title is going into dairy or that title is going into forestry or that title is going into grapes rather than saying what part of it can go into dairy what part of it can go into forestry what part of it goes into grapes to keep it fruit and that's a conversation we need to be starting to have I think Vincent can I throw a comment in there as well please do I think you know that the issue of meeting 300 000 hectares or a million hectares it doesn't have to all be new planting we've got so much regenerating vegetation in New Zealand we've got you know extensive areas of karnaka and manaka have mixed broadly for generation we've got extensive areas of gorsan and and european broom um coming back with with mixed natives in them and those those areas are hugely have huge potential and and I think with really good sort of strategic enrichment planting they can be moved more rapidly towards a a more mature condition and in those areas we shouldn't you know I think we talk about planting trees we've got to actually take a step back and first of all we've got to say well what do we already have we already have like in lowland rural New Zealand you know large areas of remnant forest often previously cut over or degraded by by domestical feral grazing animals that's incredibly valuable we've got large areas of regenerating forest for a variety of reasons particularly removal of subsidies back in the 80s but other reasons as well there's a lot of regenerating forest and we've got restoration plantings and we can't look at one of them restoration plantings and isolation from the other two because they're all they're all connected and and we need to be thinking about how they all work and how we work them together and and yes there are some areas where we really need new restoration plantings there are other areas where there's really good regene going on but at the same time we should be looking after what's already there and we need to think about all of us at a landscape scale and that's what I was saying at the beginning it's not blanketing 100,000 hectares in one block in in native forest it's actually thinking where can we get the best outcome for biodiversity for for cultural values and and how can we build on what we already have I suppose the great thing about having a number is it sets a target right and and if the vision is to expand our native forest state wouldn't having a number like 300,000 or a million be kind of part of our ambition and it's a bit like saying we want to be carbon neutral by 2050 you know why not 2051 or 2049 you know you need a you need a number to set some sort of agenda yeah I think a number's good as long as we don't lose sight of the other things that are out there so I would hate to see us become so preoccupied with planting 300,000 hectares we don't think about working with the farmers to help them manage what they've already got on their land for example you know at the end of the day that's actually more important I'm looking after what we already have and then restoration comes next I think it's it's got to be both yeah I mean targets are good for sure yeah can I add into that as well I mean I totally agree with David and I worry about numbers because numbers actually some strive results we don't want and I'll throw it out there we look at the billion tree target at the moment that's out there and there are trees from my view that are going on to land that should not be being put into trees into exotic because they are I don't know what they're going to look like in 100 years time it's going to be a mess so that's the problem with targets so happy to have a target but let's have the conversation about where we put these trees and from my point of view we need to spread it out as well for multiple reasons I mean for stream to make sure our water quality is up to standard there's one reason for that but also so that our native species can actually disperse across the landscapes if you look at my hometown of Hawkes Bay it's not much native on the plains there and the birds struggle simple yeah and if I can jump in there too you know it's terrible as I am with numbers you know our key program is trees that count and numbers do it's a hint it's a hint there's a hint in the name there Adele about what your job is yeah I know I need to learn how to count uh but you know every tree you know let's look at those individual trees that are going in our neighbourhoods and in our communities and it's not just about blanket blanket planting if we don't have regeneration and I support absolutely everything that that David and James have been saying but you know it's important that we have the incentives right so if we have this target what are the incentives that are in place to help us get to that target and that's when I like a target it's only if the incentives are right that help us to get there all right well let's talk about some of those incentives because you know where there's a benefit there's a beneficiary as they say so what are the benefits of planting native forests and I suppose the challenge we might come back to Adele in a minute James I want to explore the commercial potential from a timber point of view you know timber values as they say of native forest would seem if you looked at some of the what's certainly the history of New Zealand timber is that it makes quite good butter boxes for instance it certainly is a beautiful hardwood and we know that the Totra experiment in the north of northland I think is as rarely throwing up or it's demonstrating that you can fetch a very high price for Totra logs that was all a long way of saying James what a what has to happen for native forest to be turned into a commercial timber forest That's a big question but I think the overall thing here is that most professional foresters won't be planting native forests because there's no return on them from a timber perspective at this stage mainly because consumers don't want us to harvest them which I understand however saying that there are some fantastic native timbers and maybe this is a discussion that we need to start having again and it is very possible for us to sustainably harvest native timbers with canopy closure all the time and to do it in a good fashion but no one's going to invest in that without knowing that they can harvest at the end there are blocks of native that has been planted I'm thinking of a particular block up in north of lindon and kauri that the owner is too scared to harvest because they're scared about what the result's going to be in terms of what the public will say so that's the beginning the conversation that has to be had in regards to your question about butter boxes now we've got we can do far better than that I mean it's like saying that radiator has only gone into boxing yes it does but some of it goes into other stuff we've got much we have some beautiful timbers and if you have a look at what Tasmania is doing in their furniture making with some of their native timbers it's just incredible and we need to start going down those lines we need to start looking at it and going what you know how can we increase the value of what we are producing because we are basically and some foresters are going to kill me for this are producing the commodity but how can we increase that by going into other species and all to end and and grow them for longer and grow and and our harvesting costs will be more expensive because we'll be doing this sustainably but it's possible to be different but what I'm hearing from you is you know realistically now as a forester you know wearing your commercial hat as a businessman you're saying that native forests are too challenging to the incentives just aren't there for foresters to be planting with a view to harvesting uh I mean it's it's possible but we won't do it because only I mean we're not even sure whether the market will be there but also we're talking about 30 to 100 um governments that we have to go through in terms of three-year terms and we don't know if the rules are going to change and right now we basically can't harvest native forests really anyway so um we would but it would be it would be a big gamble to be putting a whole lot of money into native forests with the assumption that you're going to harvest it now it doesn't mean you can't put it in with the assumption that you're going to get some cash flow out of carbon or other recreation or biodiversity there's other things that we're looking at but ultimately if you really want to make it um if you really want us to increase the the area that we're planting harvest we have to be able to use the timber um and you know there's parts of our native estate that currently exist that we should be looking at using the timber as well because it's actually degrading in the timber the animals that are in there they and even dock can't look after it so we've got to look at a different way of financing our native forest full stop David you uh without casting aspersions you're probably old enough to remember the harvesting of native forest uh do you agree that it's politically unsustainable to be harvesting native timber and and could you imagine a time when a sustainable uh native forestry industry might return to New Zealand yes i am old enough to remember the skitters are pretty bloody horrible in west in the west coast back in the um in the 80s but i think you know that that's actually missing the point but the point is we're talking about new forests here we're talking about forests that have established or are being established today or have established on former farmland for example taking the tortura case in northland we're not talking about harvesting or managing old growth forests we're talking about managing new forests new plantations and and i think we do need to start being a little bit more broader in our thinking and and and i know that the the fears that James talked about are real fears and and you know there's a really active program in northland at the moment Paul Quinland is is doing some marvellous stuff around tortura yet the councils are under a lot of pressure from some of the NGOs to to make any harvesting of those forests these are forests that have regenerated naturally on pasture to make even the sustainable harvesting of those forests something that requires resource consent and open for for submissions and that that seems kind of crazy to me because because in northland if i was a farmer and i had a bit of tortura um there's nothing that stops me grazing at tortura putting my cattle into it and basically buggering it um yet if i get a sustainable management plan or a sustainable management permit from MPI which i have to have before i harvest it that requires me to fence it off it requires me to do weed and pest control um and i'm only allowed to take out a single tree or or a small group of trees at a time i've got to have a continuous forest canopy so i think we need to you know and unfortunately there are a number of us around still who are a member furanaki we remember the west coast you know we remember puriora the things that happened back then which are absolutely bloody terrible and look i don't mind saying it i work in a forestry school but what the New Zealand Forest Service did at the end there was just downright terrible and i think it's created a legacy that's still running through the environmental movement in New Zealand today and i think it's a real tragedy because i think of where to get farmers we're talking about farmers here a lot of us to look after native forests to establish new native forests there's got to be opportunities to get some income now some of it's going to be carbon for sure some of it's going to be honey but i think why not timber it's got to be under a management plan or a management permit with MPI we're not talking about what happened 30 years ago we're talking about totally different type of forestry it's it's time we grew up as a nation sorry i'll keep quiet now that was a very passionate rant well done Adele i know that you have been exploring the idea of rewarding people for biodiversity rather than just planting trees and and say collecting carbon can you expand or tell us about what what a biodiversity credit or something similar might look like yeah so what one of the challenges that that we are looking at is how do we increase native forestry and and how do we create a commercial market around this in the absence of everything that david's just been talking about which should exist right so i you know it's a terrible shame that native forestry was was wasn't managed well and so we are now you know new zealand is great at creating these boom and bust industries and we're now in these position this position where we can't use our native forestry because we're not trusted to manage it well where are there there are lots of ways of doing it and it's totally crazy that we are importing american oak to go into our houses when we have beautiful beautiful timber and anyone who's got an old villa will appreciate their old timber but anyway um you know we need to bring some commercial element into it if we're going to encourage native forestry there has to be some kind of benefit and a commercial benefit to it so this is what we've been looking at um as part of you know my challenge of getting funding into and trees that count and i talk to commercial organisations all the time who say oh look we we want uh NZ use or ETS credits we want some kind of you know return on that investment and um so i look at this and say well but so that that then gives us pine but we actually need native forestry so what are all of these benefits that native forestry brings and how we monetise that so it is all of these things these are cultural benefits there's the bird life there is honey and bees and all of these elements that um are so important to our biodiversity and and what make us uh you know you know um an attractive country and it's so very unique you know it's our natural capital um it's why tourists come here really generally for our outdoor experiences that we bring so how do we commercialise those types of things so really it's about having a measurement on that that biodiversity and being able to prove that an investment in native forestry has been able to bring that about well at least one of the incentives that we know exists is around compliance for riparian planting for instance have you found that there is an uptake and interest in trees that count from farmers who are you know needing to plant out their waterways yeah totally look we work with loads of farmers um a lot of our trees go into to farm land and i'm greatly encouraged about how farmers want to contribute and and recognise where they can can make their can improve things on their land um and i you know we've got a lot of work to do there and i'm i'm i have some very encouraging conversations with all the co-ops and and the likes of federated farmers um where uh not only is there kind of the finance might be a barrier but there's also knowledge um as it has been kind of hinted at uh in this conversation uh every piece of land is very unique it's one of our challenges but it's also it's also one of the things that makes us special um but every farm and every catchment area has its own unique uh set of challenges uh so we need to go in there and and say well these are these are um the types of plants that uh that you need to have on your land and it will do all of this and if you have it in this catchment area then this is what we think will be the benefits and this is what we can measure um there there's also um you know the water cleaning and um all of those this value add type of yeah parts of attributes that we can bring yeah yeah interesting uh i wonder if we could just talk about urban forests for a moment um you know the um i was talking to um someone from a city council recently talked about um shrub herbs rather than suburbs and uh the potential for us as residents to be planting natives david is that is that a realistic expectation that you know we could somehow affect our culture so that i don't know in the same way that we now all recycle our our you know our plastics could we create a movement that everyone plants um you know if they've got land otherwise they just need to give some money to a dell but you know can can we turn our shrub herbs into i can't think of the word treeline yeah treeline absolutely look i'm i'm i'm probably the the wrong person to ask because my my garden i think the only we've only got three exotic um woody plants in my garden napricot a cherry and a daffinite otherwise everything is native i've got a mountain beach here that i planted 20 odd years ago that's now 15 meters tall so you know you can do it and that's in christ church you know you can you can do it you can bring the stuff back look again it comes down to what what are you trying to achieve out of it of course we're never going to create a a natural system in a city but we can bring trees into cities we can bring food sources in and we can bring the birds and so even in christ church which is one of our most biodiverse bass cities in New Zealand we've got billboards gradually spreading out across the city um so we can do that but i think at the same time let's not forget the value that exotic trees can provide as well particularly in urban settings because people like them the garden city christ church is all about the englishness but some of those exotic trees can also be really important so so eucalyps are a really good nectar source for kaurimako untilie and that um you know fruit trees are really good for kataru so you know it's about being balanced but absolutely we we can bring natives back and there's but there's some wonderful people i mean collomirk down here people around our urban centers who have been you know arguing for more native trees and native vegetation in our cities for years and i think we are seeing some really impressive changes some great questions popping up on our chat and i have one here for you james it's from day man salmon so you better be on your game um uh she's she's saying that you know in europe um sustainable um harvesting of hardwoods and forest leaving the canopy intact is not controversial has been practiced for hundreds probably certainly um is the current practice uh what's stopping us in new zealand from practicing uh this sort of continuous cover forestry that she's referring to uh well i agree there it is um it is common practice over in europe and um it's it's a different there's two things one is different species so um they're growing high value species because it's actually more expensive to harvest that way so they're growing high value species which our radiata will not we just won't be able to make any money if we do it that way and two it's the landfall so we've naturally forestry initially got pushed into the back blocks steep country and it's actually quite difficult to get machines on to those sites though we are technologies changing as david as mentioned um to the sustainable harvesting um we've tried helicopter harvesting it does work in some places it doesn't another so it comes back to um putting this is right tree right place if you if you're going to do sustainable harvesting we're not putting it on the steep highly erodible country side um and it's got to be higher value species and radiata for that well for most exotic to that but for the that matter um you know i've had the privilege of seeing some of the sustainable harvesting i've seen the privilege i had the privilege of seeing and it's actually of Cornwell and take out um oak trees that uh you know that are approaching a thousand years old and they take one down and it's um and you wouldn't even know it's disappeared and it's fantastic and they can make money out of that and they keep on going so yeah i'm fully supportive of it in the right place because as we've been talking about all the way through right it's just where we put this stuff the roadblocks to it are manyfold is what you're saying there's a there's a there's a PR issue we had um Sheridan Ashford a young forester on the show last week and and she said when she talks about being a forester some people say he's treated like she works for the tobacco industry uh i suppose i suppose it's because people have this sort of uh idea that if you cut down a single tree you've contributed in some way to deforestation and and um and so that that prejudice has to be overcome doesn't it David yeah i think is what i was saying before i still think you know we we haven't grown up as a country in a sense and and we we we've got this very strong separation of of of conservation and from production in New Zealand and we're not very good at mixing the two together and that that's come out of our history um and and i think um there's huge opportunities to try and break that down and and like i said at the start i'm not talking about you know going in and harvesting old growth forests in our national parks but we've got these large areas of regenerating forests that i think we we have got the technology but as James said we do need to develop the markets but Totara there's a good market developing for that well they're working hard on that and you know Peruri beach you know there's a range of really good tree species that i think if i looked after properly and manage properly um then we we could do that we just need to shift our mindset a bit around it as well there's a question here from meag Graham who says i wouldn't support the harvest of native timber until there's a clear tracking system that allows the timber source to be identified that is from from you know where it's come from effectively some sort of um you know transparency through the supply chain is that a realistic expectation can i answer when that that's happening today i mean um you know already MPI um have sustainable management plans and permits if you want to harvest on your on your on your land private land but it's actually the sawmill where they do the the checking and so that they're auditing all the sawmills and they're prosecuting sawmills who are harvesting timber that does not come from a certified forest so that that tracking is easy it's happening already and it's very easy to do Adele i wana go back to sorry james you go well it's going to say this there's two major certification programs that are already in place both the museum and pefc and um and forestrypsia council and most people will see the fsc logo on the back of their paper and that that's tracked all the way through um it is yeah that's easy to do um and it's getting easier where as we again with more technology and we we can follow it all the way through right to the customer even down to the paper so yeah Adele a question for you you you suggested earlier on that if you could double your income you could double the amount of planting um will you let's imagine you were wildly successful and uh your trees that count continues to grow and let's hope it does uh could you imagine a situation where you would run out of places to plant no all right well that's problem solved thank you good night everybody yeah really simple answers sorry um uh no i no i wouldn't you know we are um i'm we are declining half of the applications that come to us from planters and i'm in conversations with landowners um all around the country of you know many hundreds if not thousands of hectares so um the supply of land is not an issue what's their motivation um well uh what is it it is a connection to new zealand it is an understanding of the biodiversity crisis that we are facing uh it is wanting to do a kind of a gut feel of wanting to do the right thing but not necessarily knowing how to go about doing it um you know pine has had a bit of a um a bad rap recently and um uh because you know it hasn't necessarily been well managed or in the right place so people are looking at that and saying actually we want it we want to see more of natives and and there's an increased um awareness of and love of our native wildlife which is wonderful i mean that that's great so a native wildlife live in our native trees they provide the habitat and the food source for for our wildlife um so i think there's a greater awareness and um and a connection and we really saw this last year during lockdown as well there was um quite a heightened um awareness of of nature because nature came out because we were locked in and people talked about it and it was you know one of the few things that that we could all go out and enjoy because you know that was kind of it we could go for a walk in a local park and so we kind of stopped and we looked at nature a little bit more uh so i think all of these things combined are heading towards actually we want we want to protect the things that are true and unique to New Zealand and invest in our in our natural capital can i just add to that i mean there's the the key question there is would they have planted it without the help of trees account um and i don't know what the answer is for some of these people but there is there is a great need for information to get out there there's a great need but also there's a great need for subsidies or for money um you know a lot of these people i talked to many farmers who would love to plant more native but they don't they don't know where the money's come but they don't know how to they can't finance it so there and that's something we haven't talked about i mean the land itself is this keeps the land out there but what type of land and all that but it's actually how do we get people to decide to put trees on um and somehow other the policies settings have to change or something has to change to make that happen i think that's a really good point James i mean i think that that leads into a whole lot more points i'll try to get too carried away with them i mean i think the thing about providing information i mean look farmers are incredibly busy people they run businesses and and they're experts about livestock and pastures and not necessarily ecologists some summer and i mean you know but the majority of them aren't so they need good support and i know Adam Forbes is going to be on one of the later ones of these um web things and and he's done a lot of good work as a restoration ambassador doing that doing specifically that x week in fact x week is it right excellent so he can answer that a bit further but i think the other thing around the centers is really important too and i think um you know landowners again you know people look at a farm and say yeah it's worth five million or 10 million there must be a lot of money but actually cash flows are often pretty tight in farms and we're looking at you know depending on whose figures you use anything from you know well if you use one billion trees figures what three thousand dollars a hectare for natives up to 40 000 hectares a hectare if we get the council to do it i mean it's it's a lot of money and and i think incentives are really important yeah i mean we know that you don't you don't get much change out of 20 000 dollars per hectare and you know and this is why one of the reasons why we're looking at developing the biodiversity credit as a as a thing that has value so that we can attract investment in and give farmers that income that that they should be getting from from having native forestry and giving it a commercial emphasis because if it's if it becomes commercial then that will attract investment and then we have we have more of that good behaviour so that's you know that we're very keen on not just handing out things but actually creating a commercial entity around natives but also trusting the farmers giving them the confidence from the policy makers that something that's set up now would be taken away from them in the future i think it's really important too and that's the us as a nation growing up that yeah totally governments did you say James James anything from 10 to 30 maybe more it's a lot of governments James i've read and i stand to be corrected that it's possible for foresters to transition from exotics into natives and i've particularly heard this in the context of using kind of carbon farming as the as the kind of the commercial driver for that can you explain something about that probably not the most the right person to explain it but basically yes it is possible i i mean you're using the radiator as a nursery crop where most of our native our forest native species like to grow up and as a nursery crop and that's i mean gorse has been used to the same the same mix for the nursery crop so has broom that's been talked about and other and other things as well so it is possible to do my it is active management my concern is if you think you're going to plan to go out there and plant a whole lot of radiata and eventually it's all going to fall over and natives going to come up that may not happen if there's no seed source around that may not happen if it's been farmed for four or five generations you know again it's thinking about the right the right place to do this and um there's the reason i ask us sorry james there's a good question here from um i'm a listener kaze vaikman who um sounds like a real dachi uh he asks one aspect of our marginal lands is that they are generally erosion prone which is which is true uh what do you think of planting radiata pine and he's got 750 sph so excuse me for being ignorant i'm not sure what that means but i don't think it's a measure of velocity um is it is it conceivable that erosion prone land might transition from uh you know exotics radiata pine in particular and and then into native forest at some point in the future it's conceivable but it needs a lot of management which is what i'd say so 750 is set to party 750 stems per hectare is what he's saying there so of radiata pine what's going to happen to that radiata pine in 100 years time yes that may may fall down one by one or it may all come down as one fell sweet we may have told the bay you'll like to forget that's the problem on the rotable land so let's be let's actually put some thought into what we're doing let's not just go out and do that and let's actually say well how are we actively going to manage to get rid of that radiata pine if that is the end goal um and maybe you're better off planting less radiata and actually actively planting some native at the same time so yeah interesting Adele what you you know a bit about science at this right about the using exotics as a nursery crop uh well you know i'm i'm no scientist but i i rely on the advice of um of tanae's tree trust and and uh other good friends and and what i worry about is there are commercial models and quite big businesses that are being set up around let's do some carbon farming with um with radiata pine and and natives will grow up under now it the science says um there's a little bit of debate around this um that that just doesn't happen you know you won't get that big lush healthy forest growing up underneath radiata pine you might get some ferns and some pangas but you're probably not going to get those big canopy species growing up um and if you cut down if you kind of you know the occasional pine and and let some light come in um what happens is another pine will pop in because it's an it's an invasive weed species so that's kind of what that species does um and you know and in my own experience if you walk through a pine forest or if you're you know mountain biking or running or doing anything like that it's really hard to see how um how a good healthy native forest can grow under that the pine needles just destroy everything so you know i don't know i i find it hard to to believe just as a you know walking through a pine forest let alone a scientist but i'm sure david will have a view on this i've got lots of thoughts on this as well i mean look i think it's part of the toolkit um i think it's it will suit some people and and maybe it's fine there i would not want to see it as a major part of the toolkit i think it depends where you are in the landscape it depends um if there are seed sources or not and i think my my biggest fear with it is that when the carbon or the sorry the economic return from the carbon finishes the temptation will be to put another crop of radiata there to get a timber return in the future so personally i'd plant natives not bother about it myself but i could see for some people it might be uh a way they want to go but not not my cup of tea you would plant natives if you were doing it for conservation values or biodiversity values if that was your decision um that that was your prime motivation that would you might as well go straight to the natives yep absolutely i really believe we we've we know so much about how to do good restoration um it's really just you know it's like adela was saying you know more funding we can plant the trees and i think it's been about thinking where they go on the landscape and getting that all right but i think um look let's just get get onto this biodiversity it's culture that the other key key things we want to try and sustain and enhance here so let's not try and go around a a circular route to get so let's go straight to it you know but uh can i just say one the one thing about that is that it is a way of funding native forestry right so you part the right you part the radiata you get carbon coming quickly then you get native forestry coming through we talked about before how do we fund the planting of native forestry this is one way of doing it so um i wouldn't throw it out at all um i'd say that it's i agree with David areas that you can put it on it look i mean i look at um for those in wellington i look at the the hillside behind the prime minister's house there that was all radiata they took the radiata away it's now grown quite nice native um and it will continue to grow quite right so it is possible and it's a way of funding it adela have you been sneaking up there and planting in the night well yes actually project crimson planted many many rata just there and that the council have had to take out those pines and the town bouts in wellington and while we i live in wellington and while um the the um our the forefathers were very insightful and and having these these areas of the city being um only for planting they unfortunately only put a short lived species and so the council is now facing um quite a big problem with all of these pines falling over and and that and it's hard to get that that regeneration regeneration happening um and my biggest worry about um about that is it sounds like it's a really good solution uh you know yeah we'll get the carbon value and we'll plant the pines and we get the carbon value really quickly and then yeah great we'll get natives and so yeah look everyone's happy um i worry that in 30 40 years time our the future generations will look at us and go oh my god you thought that was a good idea you know and we're just not going to know um yeah so that that's my worry is you know we're we're really good at being shortsighted and this is a long-sighted um challenge and issue it's very interesting to me that we've managed to talk for nearly an hour and we haven't once mentioned what is the government's role in this uh usually when you have a discussion with New Zealand as it all becomes the government's fault uh so uh look let's talk about the government James if you could uh ask for some policy changes that would help and enhance and reward more native forest being planted what would you ask for oh for me it's um what we talking up before it's actually a change in policy setting so that we can actually sustainably harvest our native trees um but as part of that also uh they are changing the resource management act but we need to be able to have mills that can produce um produce a timber that can then go into the furniture and everything else so there's a big infestment in that mill inside of it and that's i mean we'll be asking people to take a big risk on that unless they know so how you change a policy setting and you lock it down in stone for 100 years i don't know that's i'm not a politician that's their job well you could ask um david how about you what's on you know what's on your wish list in terms of the government my wish list is pretty straightforward look we've got to break down this this mindset that sees that statute and regulation equals sustainable conservation we need to move away from a regulatory approach to one that recognizes where to sustain our biodiversity anywhere in New Zealand on public land or private land we've got to manage management comes of a cost and so government's got to move away from this this blanket sort of regulatory approach top-down approach and providing incentives and work with landowners not not working against landowners justine adel great yeah i don't i don't think it's all of government's problem to fix um and certainly not from a financial perspective i don't i don't think this should be or wholly a burden on the taxpayer i think there are a number of policy levers that government can pull and whether that's helping to create an industry around our native wood um and it's around accessing finance from other sources um for example uh if uh migrants were coming to New Zealand would they have to show that they invested in New Zealand in some way could uh um proof you know biodiversity credit be some proof that they had done this what other kind of pools of of finance could be access um and also i think that you know the forestry act needs to be changed to provide protection to our current forestry and trees and within our neighbourhoods um and also the ets needs to be amended to to incentivize them and protect our native forestry would that ets change be possible given that most of the interpretations of the what qualifies is internationally set uh so that in the voluntary sector yes absolutely and most organizations that i talk to um in New Zealand are all playing within the the voluntary sector so they want to do something and they want to have that proof that they've done something good it's not the compliance because that's actually a very small sector of of New Zealand businesses but if you're in the voluntary sector then that is our domestic policy so therefore we can do whatever we want to incentivize whatever it is that we want so we we do actually have um the power within the ets to do that and the simplest thing oh sorry james you go the simplest thing government could do to incentivize farmers is to to allow them to get credits in the domestic market for for forests that are sequestering carbon that are older than 1990 whether it's old growth forests or regenerating forests it's an incentive to look after them which is brilliant for biodiversity it's the best thing possible i i agree this there are very few protections or incentives to protect um and also there should be an allowance around in setting james sorry sorry what is in setting uh so that is being able to offset with on your own land yeah i i just wanted to say i agree with the deal 100 percent i mean people use the ets and say oh it's it's a reason why we can't do something no it's a domestic policy we can write it however we like and make it work for New Zealand and then that what's happening at the international level is a totally different thing but we can make it work for New Zealand and and all the points raised about the pre-1919 everything else we just need to be looking at that definitely the last 60 seconds we have left i'm going to um ask you to give us a very quick synopsis of answering this question do we have enough land to meet the objective of having at a minimum 300 000 hectares of new forest and if we do um where is it and and when is it going to happen james uh yes we do and it's not um our lower class eight land out in the back blocks it's actually along stream sides it's across farms it's everywhere um and it's in the in the urban area as well adel yes i would um repeat um exactly what james has said i think our challenge is in then uh the incentives to get it there david yeah i agree to and to me you're all violently agreeing come on i was just going to say but it's what's in the plantings it's important it's where they're located in the landscape and it's how they're managed that's the most important thing excellent uh look i would really like to thank you uh three james david and adel for joining us on uh today's kuru i think we've learned a lot i think we've um we could be incredibly optimistic uh about the potential for more planting at natives it's good to hear that we're not going to ran out of space uh what we have to do is fix something else so thank you for joining us uh thank you to our viewers for joining us how many we had simon hundreds hundreds he's not he's not giving us a number none of you have committed to numbers tonight um but thanks to our viewers for joining us thank you for the questions always apologies that i haven't got to all of you including you keith dark who asked a very good question that we didn't get to it um look i i would really like to invite you to next week's discussion we're uh uh focusing next week uh with paul quinlan and adam forbes on how do you actually plant a native forest so if you've got some land uh and you want to know how to do it uh this is the show for you so this would be really aimed at landowners uh at farmers at people in urban environments who want to get started or really keen on advancing what they've already got so look forward to you joining us uh what time do we kick off simon 6 6 30 on a tuesday night um the zoom link the same zoom link i think will work is that right yeah the same zoom link that you've chosen that that you've used tonight so thank you very much and uh good night on don't forget to follow us there's always more isn't there um do follow us on social media um and visit our website pureadvantage.org to to uh there's the film as well it goes on and on um so thank you very much for joining us and um head it up good night