Oral Submission Presentation by Blake Foster - New Zealand ...

We talked with MAF people in Wellington who said the wilding pines fitted the definition of a
forest under the ETS, and could be entered into the scheme.
The ETS seemed to be a self-funding way to deal with the situation, and provide an income
stream for us to contain it, including planting a tree buffer zone and chip away at the forest area
over a number of years, replacing it with a different species.
The whole idea is to get rid of the wildings, so we drew a line in the sand surrounding a core area
of trees, and put that area into the ETS.
We use the funds from the sale of carbon credits to clear all the outliers around it.
We are planting 40,000 non-spreading trees around the core area to act as a buffer. These trees
will gradually form an effective natural barrier to prevent the airborne spread of wild conifer
seed.
Gradually we also plan to replace the core wilding area with a hybrid species, a cross between
Pinus radiata and P. attenuata, (knobcone pine) which is less prone to spreading. That’s because
the knobcone pine’s cones only open as a result of fire, and radiata pine is a low-spread risk for
us.
Our core ETS area is 1100ha, which is approximately a quarter of the property. The remainder of
the property has wildings spread across it.
Last year we made huge inroads, clearing 500ha. You have to get them while they are young and
haven’t produced cones, which is after about five years.
After receiving our first round of carbon credits and selling some of them, we then knew we had
the funds to be proactive with the problem.
We were fortunate to be able to obtain help from Nick Ledgard of Scion to do a detailed report
which identified where the spread was coming from, where we should start control from and
what the high and low risk areas were.
That’s how we came to put the low spread risk area into the carbon sink.
We have followed his recommendations.
This way we have a self-funding project, and last year we employed a gang of nine for five
weeks who used scrub bars. We had another crew of four. And we have purchased a mechanical
slasher at a cost of $150,000 to slash small trees.
The control work costs us $15,000 a week, and it is going well. It’s pretty hard work for the
team.
We also clear the road frontage back to the forest edge in areas that are clear of trees.