OPINION: The Hound wonders when the powers-that-be will take a serious look at how their infatuation with pleasing the UN and implementing crazy policies to mitigate (not reduce) the country's carbon footprint is doing severe damage to our economy.
Recent research by Beef+Lamb NZ reveals the disturbing scale of the loss of pasture-based farming land to forestry over the past few years, with some 36,824ha productive farming land lost to forestry in 2019 alone and that 700,000 stock units have disappeared over the past three years.
Much of this land has gone to carbon sinks, where huge carbon entities - such as airlines, power and petrol companies - are buying up swathes of NZ farmland and turning it into forests (which are never harvested) to offset their growing carbon output while they keep on polluting.