A group of angry East Coast farmers descended on Napier today to protest against carbon forestry, which they say is destroying their towns.
Protesters came from all over the North Island's lower east coast - from East Cape to Wairarapa. Photo: RNZ / Tim Kitchin
They left placards plastered on the steps of local MP Stuart Nash's office, who is also the forestry minister.
Sophie Stoddart is a 14-year-old from Pōrangahau, at the southern end of Hawke's Bay.
With the enemy - a pine needle in hand - she spoke passionately, saying carbon forestry could easily ruin her small town.
"Our neighbouring farm has just gone into pines, just a couple of months ago and it was quite heartbreaking to see it go."
She said it was "absolutely tragic" for towns like hers.
"Pōrangahau is like a really small rural community and it just won't run well - farms provide everything for us at Pōrangahau and it's just a really special place. When there's pine trees all around us there's just no point - no schools, you know, and most of us are all farm kids."
Protest organiser Sheena Watson is from Wairoa.
Protest organiser Sheena Watson Photo: RNZ / Tom Kitchin
Nearly 100 protesters gathered in Napier and she said they were there to fight what was happening all over the wider region.
"We're just worried about the future of rural New Zealand with the communities, the schools, the small towns, all the staff on the farms - so much land is going into pines for carbon forestry."
Carbon forestry was taking over productive land, she said.
"A lot of that land is actually good quality farmland, which produces a lot of the quality breeding stock - fattening for our meat industry."
And that could be bad for a town like Wairoa, which was getting smaller and losing services - such as banks and dentists.
Gisborne District councillor Kerry Worsnop was also there.
Last week, farmers in Tairāwhiti presented a petition to MP Kiri Allan to express their anger on the sale of a station north of Gisborne to carbon farming.
"We presented a petition to the minister, highlighting the very same issue really, which is just the enormously disproportionate viability of planting trees on farms, relative to farming farms, purely as a result of the Emissions Trading Scheme," Worsnop said.
Although the theory was trees would help offset carbon emissions for climate change, Worsnop said the problem was money leaving the country.
"Instead of exporting products, we're exporting money, that makes no sense at all. It could see radiata pine barred from the emissions trading scheme."
Protesters left their placards on the steps of Nash's office in Napier's city centre.
Protesters left their placards right outside local MP and forestry minister Stuart Nash's Napier office. Photo: RNZ / Tom Kitchin
They read "We Can't Eat Carbon Credits, Save Rural NZ, and "Wake Up J and smell the pine needles".
Despite that, Nash was not in Napier, instead in Wellington for the budget debate.
In a statement, he said he did not want to see large tracts of productive farmland converted into forestry, and the Government had just finished consulting on a new proposal to better manage carbon farming.
He did not add what he would do with the placards.