Oh my god. Finally Horizons Regional Council has notified its Plan change. N leaching allowances up 64% as a consequence of Overseer modeling tools up grade????. There it is in the Horowhenua Mail pg 5 August the 16th and again Farmers Weekly pg 18 Sept 24 2018. New science has found that more excreted N is lost in the form of Nitrous Oxide than first thought. I will have to find out if the new N limits extend to classes 3-8. Plan change 2 ?? will be before Minister David Parker (MfE) any day for approval and will be operational by mid 2019. Plan Change 3 will begin from now and takes in the Horticultural sector. Plan Change 3 thus how committed the region? or should I say Govt Ministry,s are to reduce production Plus. Well here is guessing. This fly’s in the face of Parkers speech to the Fish and game Conference recently.
So where to from here. Good question . All abit confusing really, but I for one am watching closely. I have for some time tried to get my head around how these carbon farmers are going to be sustainable long term. Lets face it after 40 or more years Pine starts rotting away, fact, that is if it has managed to stay on the hill. Plenty of examples such as the Tasman Region early this year and Toliga Bay just recently. Both Govt Officials and forestry reps are saying that a investigation(s) will follow, and perhaps changes to management practices. But believe me there will be no changes until there is large loss of life and very significant damages to infrastructure. Well I read a good article in one of the farming mags recently by a commentator who has it sussed. but I cannot put my hands on it. But I am sure that a lot of carbon farmers have bought/claimed carbon on their forests recently . Commentators are backing carbon to go to $100 per tonne . or even more. $300? Good god imagine the cost to every day living. I gave or quoted the Australian media report from within the last 18mths, was it this year or last , but read back blogs and you will find it there. The cost to average house holds of saving the planet. BUT carbon farmers are going to be out of business. The liabilities at $25-100 plus per ton are going to be horrendous, and esp if the farmer has got greedy. Of course , and you have heard me state before, indigenous tree,d cover will have in many instances recovered underneath. But believe me Governments have NO intention of allowing european/foreign farmers to claim credits on that. It is going to have to be some thing monumental or of such scandalous behavior, or of such unethical proportion for Govt to allow. Something such as Johns and my Advisory Group report, which found its way to the High Court. Something that the Media pick up and run with ,which is highly unlikely because the owners of and editors of, are from the same university as the Ministers and their Official’s are from. All mates seeking the same out comes. Maori are the only people who are able to claim credits on indigenous forest. Thus the cost of the liabilities to european/foreign farmers is going to be horrendous. My view is Govt will step in take over the forest, wiping the liabilities and put the forest into the Conservation estate. Maori have a co-governance arrangement with DoC . They will be able to claim carbon credits on that indigenous regeneration as part of their treaty settlement. Dreaming you say. Well read their claims. WE want it back, or as much as possible. It is all there. I have quoted it in past blogs. Read back. Whilist Govt cannot be seen to let that happen, never the less this is next best. A Iwi Chairman I have known for along time made the statement to me. Mike all I see coming out of this is a lot of very wealthy people and a lot of very poor people. I notice that the Maniapoto Iwi Authority in northern Ruapehu want out of the settlement process. yes as I understand it they have a urgent remedy’s application before the Office of Treaty Settlements since December of last year. They do not want to settle. Is it for the good of the general population? The Whanganui River tribes pulled out back in yr 2000 or there about, and Sir Archie Taiaroa stated they had been pulled back reluctantly to the settlement table. Mike he said. There is this table and that table. I have to represent both tables. Help me help your self. Well as you no I ran away, but not before I and John helped Archie.(Advisory Group report) I will say so ,of course. I will never be sure.But that June morning in 2013, Regional Council meeting and report 13-124 approving the Discharges and N Limits for the EVC Version One Plan. Council approved something completely different as to what was written . Council Criminal lawyer Ben Vanderkolk was in the back room before. Long before. I got to Horizons early that morning. Ben came down the hall way to the councilors room saw me ,broke into a big smile came over shook my hand and made brief conversation like we were long lost buddies. The reality was I did not no him at all, apart from a professional point .When I said to him ,What are you doing here he tapped his nose and said . Just a wee matter Mike, Now I must get a cuppa and get back to it. The rest is history, Hort NZ and the Feds used the material as Justice Koe,s called it in the High Court Appeal, and the Plan was finished. The Rats jumped ship and joined the other side. Only problem is some of them are still there. It will take such a investigation and report by some one else far more credible than John and I to stop the path central Govt is on, with regards to the Treaty Settlement Process and as a consequence the nonsense called CLIMATE CHANGE. It is merely a tool to achieve the outcomes sought.
One thing that I have noticed in the past months is that all farming Media are being used to encourage farmers to get involved with these environmental farm plans .Farmers, Beef and Lamb, Fertilizer Company,s (Ravensdown) are all being used. An other is that I have also noticed that Horizons just love those young farmers just starting out. Those guys with large bank loans. They are in like a fox terrier chasing chooks, snapping at their legs, getting ahold of their accounts, promoting business plans, pushing land retirement, protecting biodiversity. All adding cost, then in comes the bank .Sorry boy, but no more money, property on market ,and in comes forestry. Don’t believe me? Get your head out of the sand. See pg 34 Rural News sept 18th 2018. Beware of all the forests from these trees. Average age of farmers 58. Land too expensive. Page 30 same. The scope of afforestation proposed is huge.. Forrest company’s reluctant to buy hill country farms at current prices. North Is hill country the target. Blanket planting . Huge effect on down stream communities. Page 16 same, 1 billion trees not enough, Forest owners President Peter Weir. Needs to double, 2.5 billion at least. 3.4 million hec by 2050. You have read it all here and before. 47% of NZ,s land mass back in it original Biodiversity by 2050. This guy is saying it on this page.
Climate Change and Agricultures contribution too is the driver. Including sediment. And Market perception. No science to support? Or is there. You have read the above paragraphs, where Horizons says that more N is lost to the atmosphere than first thought. But here in the Country Wide magazine last month or 2 Titled In At The Deep End, on page 65, Collaboration at its best the commentator is commentating on Plan Change 7 for ECan. Keri Johnston complains that whilst all these plans aim for outcomes that benefit all, this is hard when time frames are toooo tight, being forced to make decisions based on incomplete or even lack of science and data needed to make informed, robust and balanced decisions. There is a certain skepticism around collaborative processes too. The issue now becomes one of farmers getting sucked into the above in a voluntary manner, which thus has a regulatory out come further down the track. They then have volunteered to screw them selves and have NO recourse to the courts using the “Magna Carter”. No man shall be desisted of their land.
Still think I am over the top. There it is on page 9 Dairy News August 28th 2018. Fiddling at the edges. Land Corp Head of the Environment Dr Alision Dewes says, “good management practice will not get us there. Whole of Catchment Land Use Change will be required”. Fiddling around the edges. And on page 1 Rural News August 21 2018. Damien O’Connor says get used to it.
I am very concerned. The costs imposed on consumers from the horrendous price of carbon. The unemployment that will be the result, and especially in the regions, Now you get the idea of why councils are so keen to re-arrange the order of the Well beings. Social Economic Cultural and Environmental. And introduce Out-Comes that achieve environmental out comes to.. The order of the Well Beings drive the policies and the out comes sought from local Govt Plans and planning process’s.
Think on it.