trading

POLITICIANS of all persuasions have had a hard time being nice to farmers in ways that don’t upset larger, more vociferous and vindictive sections of the voting public.

In this campaign, they seem to have discovered the key: carbon!

A PIONEERING attempt to provide landholders with a new income stream through forestry offsets, Landcare CarbonSmart, has fallen foul of the Canberra stalemate over emissions regulation.

Set up by Landcare Australia Limited, in part to help landholders put in smaller biodiverse plantings that could provide a carbon credits income stream, CarbonSmart has been killed off because the forestry offsets market and regulatory environment failed to mature as expected.

An estimated 16% of the total global GHG emissions are directly attributed to the destruction of tropical forests.

NEW Zealand’s emissions trading scheme gives this region opportunities to make money, and will change the way marginal land is used.

Carbon sequestering will change the way forests are managed and will make the establishment of unharvestable forests economically viable, two carbon farming experts told landowners, farmers and foresters at a carbon forestry workshop presented yesterday by the University of Canterbury and Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.