Customs and Excise (Sustainable Forestry) Amendment Bill
The rainforests and illegal logging
Introduction
The Customs and Excise
(Sustainable Forestry) Amendment Bill amends the Customs and Excise Act 1996 to prohibit the import into New Zealand of timber and wood products produced illegally and unsustainably. The Bill will have its First Reading in Parliament in late September. Below we explain the issues, and the rationale and benefits of the Bill.
What are the issues with tropical deforestation?
Deforestation is a major contributor to climate change emissions
Deforestation accounts for approximately 20 per cent of the world's annual greenhouse gas emissions. It is one of the largest sources of emissions from the developing world, and the deforestation is primarily from tropical rainforests. Avoiding deforestation is a major component of international climate change negotiations.
Deforestation is a major contributor to loss of biodiversity
Deforestation is also responsible for huge degradation and loss of biodiversity, including many endangered species and their habitats. For some rainforest species - estimated to be
around 50,000 a year - deforestation is now synonymous with extinction. Loss of biodiversity is a loss for humanity, and is irretrievable.
Deforestation also destroys forest-dependent indigenous communities
Deforestation has disastrous impacts on the survival, resources, and collective well-being of indigenous communities in forested regions. The loss of resources and relationships with
the forests threatens the very survival of forest-dependent indigenous people. Rainforest logging in places like West Papua is accompanied by human rights abuses, and alienation from the land.
Why is tropical deforestation taking place?
Deforestation is driven by logging for timber and wood products, as well as conversion of forested land for biofuel or agriculture. Addressing these economic reasons for continued
deforestation is crucial to eliminating the environmental and social impacts of deforestation.
The trade in rainforest timber and wood products is often illegal and unsustainable
A significant proportion of global rainforest logging is illegal and unsustainable, yet New Zealand currently has no preventative mechanism to stop the resulting timber and wood products from being sold in our shops. Despite voluntary efforts to encourage certification,
consumer information and ethical purchasing, New Zealand continues to import and sell illegal and unsustainable timber and wood products.
In contrast, sustainable forestry utilises the world's forest resources in ways that do not contribute to deforestation and biodiversity loss, often supporting afforestation and
habitat restoration instead. Sustainable forestry enhances rather than destroys communities that live in forested regions and creates meaningful and durable jobs that can lift communities permanently out of poverty.
What are the benefits to New Zealand of stopping illegal logging?
Illegal logging has a significant negative effect on New Zealand's forestry industry by depressing world prices and competing with our own sustainably produced products in some of our key markets in Asia.
Eliminating the trade in illegal timber would increase NZ forestry revenue
A Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry report[1] identifies these benefits to New Zealand production, trade and prices of wood products if illegal logging was eliminated globally. These include:
- Our wood products
exporters would receive 2% higher prices, 6% greater production and up to 15% more exports; - Our log exporters would receive a 10.6% higher price, a 0.6% greater harvest and 1.0% more log exports, particularly to Korea and Japan;
- Our sawn timber exporters would receive a 0.3% higher prices, 0.3% greater production, and 0.7 more exports;
- Domestically, the New Zealand price of logs would be a modest 1.3% higher;
- There would be a slightly higher demand for New Zealand-made furniture, but only 2.8% higher price to NZ consumers.
The combined effect of these production and price changes is that New Zealand forestry and wood products sector would earn significantly more. The New Zealand forest industry would
gain US$178 million per year in increased revenue. Of this increase, 15% (US$27 million per year) would benefit forest owners, 8% would benefit sawmillers, and collectively the panel, pulp and paper industries would reap 75% (US$134 million per year).
Eliminating the trade in illegal timber would increase NZ forests and stored carbon
Higher log prices and harvests due to the elimination of illegal logging would have a positive impact on forest land values, and on plantation forest area and standing inventory.
This includes:
- US$149 per ha higher economic return on forest lands;
- 12,000 ha more land in plantation forests in 2020;
- 5.7 million m3more standing inventory by 2030;
- 1.2 million tonnes more sequestered carbon by 2030 (worth $120 million at $100/tonne);
Indigenous forest area and harvests would show little change, as would log imports, which are mostly temperate hardwoods used for specialty veneers, and hence not affected by illegal logging.
How will the Bill assist in eliminating illegal logging?
The Customs and Excise (Sustainable Forestry) Amendment Bill establishes a border mechanism to require that timber and wood products imported into New Zealand are legal and sustainable through approved certification. It would close off New Zealand's participation in rainforest logging that increases emissions, contributes to biodiversity loss, and destroys forest-dependent communities.
Consumers would be sure that timber and wood products purchased in New Zealand were not created from illegally logged timber, costing emissions, biodiversity and community livelihood.
New Zealand would be a world-leader in the global campaign to stamp out illegal logging.
[1] James Turner, Andres Katz and Joseph Buongiorno (2007) Implications for the New Zealand Wood Products Sector of Trade Distortions due to Illegal Logging: A report prepared for the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry by Scion. Available at http://www.maf.govt.nz/forestry/illegal-logging/trade-distortion-implications/
