New Zealand Institute of Forestry

21/04/2026

The Annual NZIF Conference being held in Dunedin 26-28 August 2026. Visit Conference Website https://www.nzifevents.nz/dunedin2026, for full programme and registration.

27/07/2022

Response by Euan Mason to the Climate Change Commission's press release on July 27th 2022:

Being greenhouse gas (GHG) neutral is highly desirable, and marketable, but the Climate Change Commission's (CCC's) advice appears to be somewhat at odds with creating a net GHG neutral economy for two reasons.

Firstly, the CCC says that we wish to move to net neutrality by 2050, but that our prime CO2 removal mechanism, new forest sinks, should not be relied upon because "This would ultimately put our economy at a competitive disadvantage relative to a decarbonised global economy and shift cost burdens on to future generations". No doubt the CCC's argument is based on the fact that new forests have limited lives as sinks, and so ever larger areas of new forest establishment are required for this solution to be sustainable, and we have a finite area of land much of which has other uses. What this really means is that net neutrality is not a desirable ultimate goal.

Moving gross emissions to zero should be our ultimate goal. Forest sequestration can buy us time while we switch to an economy that is not based on GHG emissions, but it is not a final solution. It is quite clearly spreading the burden of change across generations, and this is what our "net zero by 2050" commitment inherently does. We therefore need mechanisms that go further than the emissions trading scheme which could only achieve net zero GHG emissions. This advice should be explicit, with a clear plan and recommendations for mechanisms to get Aotearoa to gross GHG zero by a realistic target date.

Secondly, given the marketability of an enterprise claiming "greenhouse gas neutrality", the CCC appears to be confused about auctioned carbon credits, because as tools for claiming GHG neutrality auctioned credits are fraudulent. Auctioned credits are created out of thin air, and do not represent anyone actually removing GHGs from the atmosphere. Therefore purchasers of auctioned credits cannot honestly claim "our operations are greenhouse gas neutral". On the other hand, forest sinks do remove GHG's from the atmosphere, and purchasers of those credits can honestly claim greenhouse gas neutrality. Auctioned credits should not be called carbon credits, they are instead a form of taxation, such as a car registration, and should be called something like a "licence to pollute". This more honest name would provide an incentive to emit less rather than purchase them, and promote our ultimate goal of a zero gross emission economy. More honest naming would also clarify our policies and our actions thereby promoting our two goals of net GHG neutrality by 2050, and gross GHG zero by perhaps the end of the century, as suggested by the Globe study from Vivid Economics.

Euan Mason
Professor
University of Canterbury

27/04/2022

Submission by Euan Mason on proposed changes to policy on permanent forest carbon sinks.
http://euanmason.blogspot.com/2022/04/submission-on-proposed-changes-to.html

25/04/2021

This is a great article on transitioning exotic plantations to native species. Just for the record, all carbon forests need to be managed. There should be no such thing as "plant and leave".

Establishing new native forests can be difficult, more so in some parts of New Zealand than others. Exposed, dry conditions without overhead shade favour more aggressive w**d species which outcompete native species; browsing pests are attracted to environments where native species could otherwise re...

24/04/2021

Where to for Aotearoa’s forests? Indigenous and plantation forests will help us get to net zero and reverse climate change.

http://euanmason.blogspot.com/2021/04/where-to-for-aotearoas-forests.html

31/01/2021

Response from Professor Euan Mason to the Climate Change Commission's report, February 2021:

Some initial comments after a brief reading of your report:

The Climate Change Commission should be commended for making a very helpful, comprehensive report on such a difficult topic. The Commission is right to state that our long term focus must be on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. With respect to forestry issues there appear to be a number of unsubstantiated assumptions, however:

1. Forest C storage is said to be “impermanent”. What matters is the total area of New Zealand in forest, not whether or not any particular forest stand blows down, burns or is harvested. If we commit to increasing the total national area of forest and to ensuring that the very small areas that blow or burn down, or those areas that may be harvested, will be re-established, we can enlarge a very stable, permanent C store in forests.

2. Forest is said to be risky because climate change will increase the risk of fires. New Zealand’s forests have long been far more likely to blow down than burn down, and the frequency of forest fires has not yet been shown to have increased in New Zealand. Australia, at similar latitudes to the Sahara and with continental climate patterns, has always been subjected to greater forest fires than us, and our opinions on this matter appear to have been strongly influenced by anecdotes from across the Tasman Sea. This is poor evidence on which to base policy.

3. There appears to be an implicit assumption that native forests are more permanent than exotic forests, and to the extent that exotics tend to be pioneer species from an ecological point of view, this is true for unharvested forests, but the conclusions that we must plant native forests and that these forests will greatly help us reach our 2050 target are flawed. Native forests sequester C very slowly compared to our most productive exotics, and areas of native forest required to have the necessary impact on our C accounts by 2050 are simply too large and expensive for us to contemplate. There is abundant evidence that we could take advantage of rapid sequestration rates of exotics to fill gaps in our C accounts (these gaps result from a necessarily slow pace of change in greenhouse gas emissions and are acknowledged by the Commission) while gradually transitioning these pioneer exotic carbon forests to later seral stage native forest over many decades. This latter approach would have substantial advantages. It a) is much cheaper, in dollars and in land area required, than directly planting native C forest; b) ensures that forests actually fill the gaps in our C accounts; and c) ultimately provides extra native forest which many of us would like to see, but in a more natural way.

Kind regards,
Euan Mason