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'Disaster waiting to happen': Fears carbon farming increases risk of wild fire

James Hunter worries the huge cost of managing forestry pests and fire risk is falling on farmers. Photo: RNZ / Alexa Cook The increasing number of farms being planted in trees for carbon farming is raising fears about the spread of pests and fire risk. Some farmers are spending tens of thousands of dollars a year on pest control to prevent deer and pigs eating their crops, while also forking out for higher insurance premiums due to the risk of fire. Out near Porangahau in Central Hawke's Bay, farmer James Hunter is worried about the future of his farm. His neighbour's 2000 hectare Motere Station has just been planted in pine trees, after it was sold last year to Chinese forestry company K&A Sustainability Ltd. "If we think it's so good to offset our carbon by planting pine trees, why do I have to carry the cost with everything I hold precious being destroyed?" he asks. The Hunter family has farmed Rangitoto Station for more than 170 years. The rolling to steep hill country offers unbeatable views of Pacific Ocean, while inland the farm's many valleys are filled with canopies of poplar trees to prevent erosion. For the past 40 years, Hunter has been on a mission to create kilometres of wetlands on the farm, regenerate many hectares of native bush, and fence off special areas that are now protected under QEII National Trust covenants. "It's such a buzz," said Hunter. His eyes lit up as he explained how the wetlands naturally filtered and cleaned what ran off the land, collecting sediment so the water that ran out to the rivers and oceans was clean. Photo: RNZ / Alexa Cook The Hunter's farm early in the 1990's before wetlands and native bush were established, compared to today where the farm has about 15 hectares of wetlands filtering the run off. Photo: RNZ / Alexa Cook It has taken countless hours of work and substantial investment, but he feared these precious habitats were at risk of pests from the new forestry plantation. "What's bothering me is that all of this work that I've done - the deer are going to destroy it, and if it's not the deer, the pigs will come out and eat the lambs," he said. Forest Owners Association chief executive Elizabeth Heeg told RNZ that pest control was part of regional council management plans. She said the association did not collect data on how much forestry owners spent on pest control, but it varied depending on the region and size of forest. "They take these issues seriously for their communities. We are having more trouble with pigs in recent years than we'd had previously. "Deer numbers in some places are expanding, we need to have good game management out there and think about where these populations have expanded to a point where they need professional intervention to be knocked back," she said. James Hunter is worried his wetlands and native bush is at risk of being destroyed by forestry pests such as deer and pigs. Photo: RNZ / Alexa Cook Another risk that farmers were worried about was wildfire. Hunter has lived through many severe droughts and told RNZ that with an increasing number of pines being planted in the area, he was seriously concerned about the fire risk. He said there was a lack of responsibility from forest owners to mitigate them. "The forest people are not putting in anything to control fires. If there's a big fire and the only good dam out here is my water supply dam, and it's the middle of a drought and they drain it, where does that leave me? "Why should I have to carry the cost of firefighting, when they've done nothing other than plant every available inch, even though they were told not to plant the airstrip... they did," he said. The entire stretch of hillside along the horizon was planted in pine trees this year. Photo: RNZ / Alexa Cook It was rural communities like his that he had seen decimated by the forestry industry, as Hunter said once the trees were planted there was no employment opportunities until harvest, or if it was a carbon farm then it was locked up and left. He is among many who are warning that this rural way of life - of living off the land and mustering stock with horses and dogs - is disappearing. "It's the dream - and if we plant New Zealand, we're going to shut out people's dreams. We're going to shut out the opportunity to progress. "There are so many issues attached to forestry and you can't unwind it," he said. Fellow Hawke's Bay farmer Bruce Wills has had a lifetime of farming next to forestry. His family farmed at Trelinoe Park in Te Pohua from 1955 to 2018 and witnessed the boom of forestry after Cyclone Bola in 1988, when pine trees were touted as the solution to controlling erosion. Bit by bit his farm was surrounded in forestry, which Wills said resulted in a flood of pests eating his crops, costing him tens of thousands of dollars a year in pest control alone. "We spent an enormous amount of time and effort and money controlling possums, goats, deer, pigs that poured in from the forestry and grazed on pastures overnight. "These are the sort of challenges that New Zealand hasn't woken up to yet with the proliferation of carbon farms," he said. Bruce Wills says increasing forestry plantings resulted in a flood of pests eating his crops Photo: Having forestry neighbours on every boundary also carried a huge insurance cost because of the fire risk. "Certainly towards the the latter years when we were fully surrounded and had the significant risk all around us... we doubled and sometimes more, our public liability insurance. "So we were carrying $10 million plus of cover for public liability because of that pine tree risk to our business if a fire escaped from our property," he said. Wills said in his experience, many forest owners were not prepared for fire and he believed many people underestimated the fire risk of forestry. "Most New Zealanders are complacent to this risk and it will come and bit us now with this increased risk of pine tree fuel ready to be ignited. "It worries me a lot, and in the climate that we've got. It's a disaster waiting to happen," said Wills. File photo. Photo: Supplied / Fire and Emergency NZ PF Olsen manages more than 160,000 hectares of forestry in New Zealand, including the K&A Sustainability Ltd owned block next to Hunter. Managing director Scott Downs told RNZ that forest owners were working with Fire and Emergency to develop fire risk management plans. However, he said what each forest spent on fire mitigation varied hugely depending on their location and size. "I think fire is a few years away in terms of risk, so they haven't necessarily started thinking fully about that yet... but it will definitely be on the agenda," he said. Downs said PF Olsen met regularly with landowners, such as farmers, and were always available to discuss their concerns. "We're a local company so we have local people on the ground who can go out and visit these sites regularly. We're not a faceless corporation or entity that they have no contact with or struggle to get hold of," he said. An area of farmland in Central Hawke's Bay that is being planted in pine trees. Photo: RNZ / Alexa Cook As for pest control, PF Olsen said while it did not have exact figures on what its forest owners spent, it was a cost that was included in the forest management budgets. "Obviously there is a lot more pest control in the first four years or so when the trees are growing, then it reduces after that. "But there are still ongoing issues there that we need to manage, in terms of we don't want to be a harbouring site for pigs and deer that create havoc with neighbours, because we want to be a good neighbour," said Downs. Figures from Fire and Emergency show the annual average for vegetation fires is about 4350. Between July 2023 and June 2025, Fire and Emergency attended 547 vegetation fires where some of the area burned was recorded as having land cover in exotic forest, and 78 of those fires were more than one hectare in size. The Forest Owners Association said many of its members did take responsibility for managing their land properly. Chief executive Elizabeth Heeg said $21 million a year was spent on fire protection. "We really encourage all rural landowners that forests to engage with our guidelines on our website. "It's really important we are all up to speed on what the current practice is," she said. When asked if there were any mandatory requirements for forest owners to reduce the risk, Heeg told RNZ there were forest service levies and some legal requirements. "If someone is not managing that risk effectively, then FENZ can come in with a range of responses. "We are all concerned about increasing fire risk, and that's why it's really important that we are working together on how we are going to manage fires, and fire prevention," she said. Fire and Emergency Hawke's Bay community risk manager Nigel Hall agreed that forestry was a big fire risk, and said FENZ was always talking to forestry owners. He said the fire service had extensive maps of forests which included the age and type of trees, topography of the land, access tracks, and water supply locations. "They're doing all they can to mitigate fires within their own forests and they are putting fire breaks around key infrastructure , for example powerlines that go through forests," said Hall. File photo. Photo: RNZ / Calvin Samuel He said for carbon forests, which are usually not pruned like the timber production forests, the fire risk can be greater because there was more fuel. "They are higher risk once they are going... but potentially they are lower risk to start with because they are greener underneath. "But for any forest, the likelihood of us actually going in to the forest to extinguish it, we just won't be doing that. Once a fire has taken hold the only way we can fight it is with helicopters," he said. Since 2017 Fire and Emergency has established Service Level Agreements with forest owners, and FENZ national manager risk reduction Jonathan Tan said there were currently 14 Service Level Agreements in place with forest owners, with four to be completed. "Many forest owners either had wildfire capabilities prior to 2017 or have since invested in firefighting resources, including Forest Rural Firefighting appliances, water tankers, and trained personnel within their workforce," he said. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.