A regenerative approach that puts people and nature first.
The Green Party will support sustainable farming and forestry that protects our environment, communities and livelihoods.
We can have a thriving, sustainable food and fibre sector that prioritises mātauranga food production, creates food security, keeps our waterways healthy and provides good jobs for our rural communities.
But for decades, successive governments have encouraged increasingly intensive farming and forestry, prioritising short-term profits over long-term wellbeing. Industrial dairying is our biggest climate polluter and contaminates our drinking water with nitrates. Family-run businesses struggle while large corporate farms profit at the expense of people and planet. Weak rules for forestry have allowed slash to devastate communities when heavy rain hits, damaging homes, infrastructure and waterways. Rural communities are left to clean up the mess.
Solutions exist. The Green Party has campaigned for decades to feed our communities, while reducing the negative impacts of agriculture on nature and the climate. We championed a new regulatory approach to help the organic sector grow.
It’s time to support Aotearoa to shift to regenerative farming and forestry. The Green Party will help farmers phase down intensive practices and ensure the forestry sector can provide good jobs, while also protecting communities and waterways.
Our plan
- Increase support for farmers to transition to more sustainable forms of agricultural production through finance mechanisms such as low-interest loans and grants.
- Back Aotearoa-grown natural fibres, including wool, by using them in the construction and refurbishment of schools and public buildings, and establishing a contestable fund for sustainable fibre manufacturing and innovation.
- Ban palm kernel expeller and ensure all supplementary feed is sustainably sourced and does not strain the carrying capacity of the local environment.
- Prevent land from being used beyond its capacities by implementing strong controls on clear-fell of plantation forestry, working to transition extremely erosion-prone land to indigenous forestry and establishing a National Soil Strategy that sets direction on soil use, policies and research.
- Support the local wood processing sector to manufacture higher-value timber products from plantation forestry, such as cross-laminated timber for construction and turning slash into solid biofuels, retaining regional employment and development.
- Work with Māori-led forestry organisations to support investment in forestry and restoration of forests on whenua Māori and recognise tangata whenua customary use rights in indigenous forestry according to their tīkanga.
- Establish a biodiversity credits scheme that supports landowners to undertake restoration and protection of land as a voluntary revenue alternative to the Emissions Trading Scheme. As part of this, prioritise marginal whenua Māori where agreed by landowners.