Indigenous forests in New Zealand could get a boost with a few changes to government policy

New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (Inc)
Media Release, Tuesday, 3 December 2024

For immediate release

New work by NZIER describes the challenges that indigenous forests face from market forces and government decisions.

“Indigenous forests provide many non-market benefits,” said Dr Bill Kaye-Blake, Principal Economist at the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER). “They support native biodiversity, they reduce contamination of waterways, and they are socially and culturally important.”

Improving the Emissions Trading Scheme, accounting for biodiversity, and continuing the work with freshwater policy are all ways to support indigenous forests. These measures would help balance the incentives for different land uses and improve wellbeing in New Zealand.

"The ETS is useful because it creates incentives to remove carbon from the atmosphere. However, because it incentivises early removal rather than resilient removal, it tends to favour fast-growing trees like pines," Kaye-Blake explained.

This work follows on from an earlier report by the Our Land and Water National Science Challenge that described how incentives are currently skewed to promote the growth of pine plantations.

For further information, please contact:
Dr Bill Kaye-Blake
Principal Economist
bill.kaye-blake@nzier.org.nz | 027 362 0743