Not that broken promises are something new with this government, but it gets extremely personal for me when it is rural communities being hammered.

Especially when the “Howl of protest” was supposed to be “Pakeha farmers” pushing back against “environmental regulation of any sort on their properties”.

An election promise by Dear Leader was to protect productive farmland from going into exotic forests.

The gateways to the endless exploitation productive NZ farmland by foreign owners planning pines and wrecking havoc were opened by Shane Jones in 2017, when he instructed the Overseas Investment Office to give priority to overseas forestry purchases towards his “billion trees” dreams.

Ta-da! Lo & behold the “SPECIAL FORESTRY TEST ” comes along in 2018. Its key selling point – foreigners NO LONGER NEED TO PROVE AN ECONOMIC BENEFIT TO NZ.

Prove you’ve got good character and will honor existing land arrangements & there you have a license to plunder.

Exotic forests provide no benefits to NZ:

1. Logs go overseas.
2. Five jobs are replaced by 1.
3. Less families , less kids, schools close , communities dwindle.
4. Soil acidification & wilding pines abound
5. Run off such as the Tologa Bay mess in 2018 after a storm brought slash and sediment down from harvested hillsides
6. Rates burden rises as forestry pays 95% (thats right 95% ) LOWER RATES. $9 million capital value drystock farm would pay $13,000 toward the district roading rate. A similarly sized forestry block would pay $654.

So, of course we needed a “Special test” to allow unfettered ruin of rural New Zealand.

But for Dear leader, this is also helping cull thousands of stock (7,00,000) to-date – so helping climate change. What better eh?

Foreign Forestry for the win.

bekindbeblind
developatasteforpines

Column Author: Jaspreet Boporai. a 42 year old wife, mum of two kids (6, 4) and a dairy farmer. She and her husband manage 1500 cows over two farms in Western Southland for a large equity partnership.

Jaspreet got her degree in accounting from Massey and has also been bookkeeping for the last decade.

She and her husband moved to NZ in 2009, swapping 80 hour weeks in corporate banking for prob longer weeks in farming! (her husband has done his MBA and Jaspreet was a mortgage underwriter in India).

Hailing from Punjab (the epicentre of Indian farmer protests), India’s wheat basket, the love of land runs strong in the couple and wanting to go large scale farming got them to New Zealand.

Jaspreet’s family has been serving in the Indian army for many generations and nearly 30 years ago, her dad served in the Indian army contingent under the aegis of the United Nations in Africa. Thus, began her interest in all things UN related!