Forestry company fined $112,500 for evironmental breaches near Waihi
Convictions and fines totalling $112,500 have been imposed on a logging company for repeated environmental damage on a farm near Wahi between August 2022 and October 2023.
Primary Industries Minister David Carter says the Government is reviewing three forestry schemes to decide whether they need to be tweaked to encourage more forestry plantings.
This coincides with a fall in the international price of carbon from a high of $25 to the present low of $3 a tonne.
Carter says he's aware of the criticism about overseas carbon credits. "Anybody in the New Zealand forestry industry expecting a return out of carbon is obviously concerned. They are looking for ways to insulate New Zealand from the international carbon price. I personally believe we need to see more trees planted in New Zealand particularly in areas of the land which are eroding significantly."
Carter says the three schemes in question – The East Coast Forestry Project, The Hill Country Erosion Programme and the Afforestation Grant Scheme – are being reviewed.
NZPork has appointed Auckland-based Paul Bucknell as its new chair.
The Government claims to have delivered on its election promise to protect productive farmland from emissions trading scheme (ETS) but red meat farmers aren’t happy.
Foot and Mouth Disease outbreaks could have a detrimental impact on any country's rural sector, as seen in the United Kingdom's 2000 outbreak that saw the compulsory slaughter of over six million animals.
The Ministry for the Environment is joining as a national award sponsor in the Ballance Farm Environment Awards (BFEA from next year).
Kiwis are wasting less of their food than they were two years ago, and this has been enough to push New Zealand’s total household food waste bill lower, the 2025 Rabobank KiwiHarvest Food Waste survey has found.
OPINION: Sir Lockwood Smith has clearly and succinctly defined what academic freedom is all about, the boundaries around it and the responsibility that goes with this privilege.