A logstacker lifting logs off a truck at Port Chalmers wharf Dunedin New Zealand. Photo CC BY 3.0 Benchill.
Is the government taking the forestry industry seriously enough?
The Forestry Institute says keeping agriculture out of the Emissions Trading Scheme has resulted in unintended subsidies to farming - with more and more marginal land being removed of scrub and forest and turned into grass.
Forestry Institute President James Treadwell says the industry is in the process of forming a national policy for the next 100 years and wants the government to be part of that. But getting political buy-in is proving hard.
The Minister responsible for Forestry, Jo Goodhew, responds.
