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Wednesday, 29 March 2023 11:55

Chop, chop!

Written by  The Hound
Chop, chop!

OPINION: This old mutt reckons both government and officials are failing to see the wood for the trees in regard to the huge swathes of good farmland going into forestry - much of this to overseas-owned carbon sinks.

According to Newshub, from information under the Official Information Act, 25 times more land was converted into forestry last year than a decade ago.

It shows a rise in new forestry area from 695ha in 2013 to more than 18,000ha last year.

Beef+Lamb NZ says it is alarmed by this figure and while it is not against off-setting via commercial forestry, it argues that there needs to be some limits put on it.

Your old mate hopes the Government's 'ministerial inquiry' into forestry slash will lead to limits on land conversion, as it needs to answer for its policies incentivising forestry to earn carbon credits.

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OPINION: Forestry is not all bad and planting pine trees on land that is prone to erosion or in soils which cannot support livestock farming makes sense.

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OPINION: Your old mate reckons townie Brooke van Velden, the Minister of Workplace (or is it Woke Place) Relations is now showing how underemployed she is as a minister by initiating an investigation into whether young children should be banned from collecting eggs on farms and feeding animals.

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OPINION: There's an infamous term coined by a US general during the Vietnam war, specifically in reference to the battle of Ben Tre: "We had to burn the village to save it."

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OPINION: The sudden departure of Jim Ward, manager of Molesworth Station for 24 years, highlighted some major dysfunction in the way conservation estate is managed in this country - the biggest problem, as the Hound sees it, being idealogues who harp on about "taonga" and use all means possible to block sensible commercial operations on conservation land.

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