Blumsky Mark: Climate Change Response Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Blumsky Mark: Climate Change Response Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:635;Page:6232] 
MARK BLUMSKY (National) 
: 
 I will follow on from the Minister responsible for Climate Change Issues and just say there is some real merit in what the Climate Change Response Amendment Bill is doing in establishing the Permanent Forest Sink Initiative. We should applaud that initiative as a whole as members are doing today. 
Part 2 relates specifically to setting up the development of the tools that will allow landowners to access the value of the carbon sequestration on land by the establishment of the forest sink covenants. I referred to the  
Hansard  
debate on the second reading of this bill and I will quote from Jeanette Fitzsimons’ speech in which she said: “I have met a number of forestry companies that are just waiting for this bill to go through in order to take up the commercial opportunities that it offers. Some of them want to plant native production forests with continuous canopy; that is something that we badly need.” When we get signals like that because of the Permanent Forest Sink Initiative then that has to be good. As the Minister alluded to the ability to plant farmland and countryside that is prone to dramatic devastation caused by erosion or flooding is encouraging in terms of starting to put that right. 
One of the good things about getting involved in these debates in Parliament is that one actually does a little bit of reading and learns something. I have to say that I did not know a lot about carbon sequestering. I now know a hell of a lot more and I thought I would share with the Committee how highly effective forestry is in delivering on that. When we read the figures we realise how important it is that we move forward on this and arrest the decline in forestry by planting a lot more trees. For example I did not know that a cubic metre of wood contains 250 kilograms of carbon while a cubic metre of air contains 0.17 grams of carbon. That means that a cubic metre of wood contains the same amount of carbon as 1.4 million cubic metres of air. 
Rodney Hide 
: Are you sure? 
MARK BLUMSKY 
: I suggest to the member that we have to be pretty happy that the trees are doing their job. Photosynthesis and the trees’ ability to lay down wood which is cellulose and lignin act as a powerful concentrator of carbon from the atmosphere in a fixed form. That has to be good for New Zealand for sure. So now that we understand the power of a tree to suck so much carbon out of the air we have to be very concerned that our afforestation rates which historically were very powerful—up to 40000 hectares a year—have fallen sharply over the last 5 years. In 1994 we had 100000 hectares and last year we had 6000 hectares. We do have to be concerned at that impact and National therefore—as the Committee is doing—fully supports this initiative in setting up the sink. 
The Commerce Committee received a submission from the Farm Forestry Association; it talked about the three possible drivers for decreasing plantation rates. Two of them I thought were quite relevant: that future returns on plantings are not sufficient to encourage planting and that new investors who might have established new forests may have been discouraged by negative press regarding the forestry industry. I suggest that this bill is putting forward positive press. It is encouraging plantation opportunities within the forestry industry so that the sector can move forward and we have to be very pleased with that. 
So I am supportive as is the rest of this side of the Committee of what this bill is doing. As I have alluded Part 2 is the mechanism that gives the opportunity for the sink to be established. We have to be pleased understanding as we do—and as I have just shared with my colleagues here—the power of a tree and how much carbon it can take out of the air. 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 67 in the name of the Hon David Parker to Part 2 be agreed to. 
Amendments agreed to. 
Part 2 as amended agreed to.