Foresters call for ETS delay impact meeting

TV 3 News 25 November 0000

Forestry industry members are calling for an urgent meeting with ministers to discuss the impact of putting the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) on hold.

The industry says it is now facing multi-million dollar losses and wants National to deliver on its pre-election promise to look after it.

Foresters once campaigned against Labour's ETS, then adapted to it as the first industry that had to join up.

Now because of its agreement with ACT, the National Government has put that scheme on hold, a move foresters say is in fact a repeal.

"We've been involved with this for so long and as I said before, forestry's been the first in and then all of a sudden it's all frozen again," says David Rhodes of the Forestry Owners' Association.

Many foresters have been storing carbon credits for sale through the scheme. Now they want an urgent meeting with ministers to work out what they do with them.

"If you got credits but you can't do anything with them, then they're not a lot of use," says Mr Rhodes.

National campaigned on amending the ETS, but ACT wanted it dumped so National agreed to shelve the scheme while alternatives are reviewed. That could take up to nine months.

"Decisions they've made to put this on hold have already stopped all planned planting, and nothing will proceed until we have certainty," says Roger Dickie of the Kyoto Forestry Association.

Labour says the industry is too valuable to put on hold, and says it wants to work with foresters to move things forward

"Yes, we had our differences in the past," says Labour leader Phil Goff, "but we reached an accommodation that seemed to work for everybody, but the National-ACT deal has put an end to that. It's created huge uncertainty and with that the loss of investment, the loss of jobs."

The Government says foresters can air their concerns during the select committee review process as part of its agreement with ACT. But foresters say the situation needs to be resolved now, or the industry will suffer.