A Forester Claims A MPI Decision To Cut An $18 Million Swathe Through His Industry Resulting In Significant Job Losses In Hawke’s Bay And Gisborne

A forester claims a MPI decision to cut an $18 million swathe through his industry resulting in significant job losses in Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne. New Zealand Institute of Forestry president James Treadwell says the planting side of the sector might be “gone” if the fee structure isn’t removed. From next Thursday landowners and foresters who are in the Emissions Trading Scheme will be charged an additional annual fee of $30.25 per hectare in perpetuity. MPI says the $29.8m it costs each year to run the forestry ETS has been 100% taxpayer-funded until now. But from next week 63% of those admin costs will instead fall to ETS participants, with the remaining 37% still funded by the taxpayer. James Treadwell says the costs are not something the industry can absorb. He estimates that from a labour perspective it could be as much as 10,000 hectares not being planted each year which would mean at least a thousand people would lose that work.