The article posted on 14 September on Sunlive, may tend to indicate the Mr Basil Graeme of Aongatete Forest Restoration Trust is up to his old tricks again of pushing his dream of aerial 1080 in the Kaimai Forest, and of not letting the truth, or science, get in the way of a good story!
A lot of the comments made are pure speculation and hearsay, and whether or not a forest is ‘healthy' or not depends on a range of factors that may be unique to that forest, and not on just one person's opinion.
Trying to link the ETS and carbon sequestration to native forests is a desperate attempt for credibility at best, after similar attempts to justify 1080ing the Kaimais on the basis of ‘catchment protection' have failed. If Mr Graeme was really serious about carbon sequestration he would be promoting the planting of exotic trees such as eucalypts and pine, which are 3 to 4 times more efficient than native trees at sequestering carbon, and even these are really only most effective during the main growing phase. The amount of carbon sequestration by mature native forests is extremely small. Therefore, the browsing effects of a few deer, pigs and possums is negligible.
To say 'continental countries don't have this problem because browsing animals are part of their system” is a joke, and Mr Graeme deliberately overlooks the fact that forests in NZ (pre-human) developed with intense browsing pressure from several species of moa and numerous other birds, consuming an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 tonnes of foliage per day, as opposed to the current (Landcare Research) estimated 2500 tonnes per day for deer, and a few million possums. There is still no credibility to the oft-quoted figure of 70 million possums. It remains industry myth/propaganda.(abridged)
Dean Maisey, Tauranga.