Forest plantations rely only on rain, and right now that's free. But Mark Brindal wants a new system where both foresters and irrigators all pay an annual license fee. Over the last century we have divided nature into little bits. Nature doesn't work in bits, nature works as a whole. What we're trying to do is look at the whole equation.
Trees use water.
Everything that we know depends on water for its life, for its existence. What we're trying to do is look at the whole thing and come up with a system that actually acknowledges every part of the whole and the place of each part. Needless to say, foresters are less than happy with the idea saying it will inhibit a valuable growth industry and send many of them to the wall. Pat Lamb is General Resources Manager at Green Triangle Products, which turns thousands of hectares of radiata pine into building products. At the turn of the century the trees were cleared for dry land farming and there's trees being replanted since.