Government pushes controversial land-use decisions on to councils

Councils have been landed with more contentious land-use issues. (Image: Depositphotos)

Wed, 14 Jun 2023

The government has confirmed it will give councils more power to block or control the planting of permanent pine forest plantations as ministers wrestle with complex and sometimes contradictory policy impacts.It's the latest move by ministers to try and balance competing priorities around carbon forests, which are planted with the primary purpose of earning carbon credits and not harvested and replanted.The political and policy problem for the government is that planting more forests helps New Zealand meet its carbon budget, but also has ot...

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