Proposed updates to forest types and default carbon tables for exotic forests in the NZ Emissions Trading Scheme and other regulatory amendments

Updates

11 July 2025 – Summary of submissions released

Summary of submissions: Technical improvements to the Climate Change (Forestry) Regulations 2022 [PDF, 631 KB]

15 May 2025 – Accepting submissions until 23 May

To ensure that you had sufficient time to consider the proposals and additional materials, we extended the closing date by a week. We accepted submissions until 5pm on Friday 23 May 2025.

14 May 2025 – Related documents added

We published fact sheets that explain how the proposed changes:

will deal with small areas
affect forests on stock change accounting.

Go to the fact sheets

13 May 2025 – Related documents added

We published a question and answers summary of those made during the public webinars and online hui on the consultation.

Go to the question and answers summary

We also published the presentation slides from the webinars and hui.

Go to the presentation slides

30 April 2025 – Cabinet paper and related document added

We published the documents that seeks agreement to release the attached consultation document (appendix one) on updates to the Climate Change (Forestry) Regulations 2022.

View the cabinet papers and related document

29 April 2025 – Technical annex added

We published a technical annex that summarises the research supporting the proposed updates to the default carbon tables.

View the technical annex

23 April 2025 – Registrations open for webinars and online hui

To support this consultation, we ran 2 webinars and 2 online hui. These sessions provided an opportunity for you to ask questions and discuss the proposals. The online hui were dedicated sessions for whenua Māori to give feedback on the proposals.

Consultation background

The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) consulted on changes to improve the default carbon tables for exotic forests in the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme (NZ ETS). Default carbon tables are used by small-scale forestry participants to calculate the carbon stored in their forests. We also consulted on other technical regulatory amendments for forestry in the NZ ETS.

Summaries of proposals are on this page and full details are in the discussion document.

The consultation was open from 15 April to 23 May 2025.

Discussion document

Proposed changes to forestry in the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme (NZ ETS) [PDF, 2.1 MB]

Introduction and summaries of the proposals

The Maximising Forest Carbon Programme aims to improve how we measure, recognise, and reward carbon storage in our native and exotic forests. One of the ways it will do this is by improving the accuracy of the default carbon tables.

Find out about Maximising Forest Carbon Programme

Summary of proposed changes to the default carbon tables for exotic forests

Participants with less than 100 hectares of forest land registered in the NZ ETS use the default carbon tables to calculate their forest’s carbon storage. The tables were developed in 2007–2008 using the best data available at the time but have not been meaningfully updated since.

Tree species in the NZ ETS are grouped into 5 forest types for carbon calculations. These are:

Pinus radiata (radiata pine)
Douglas-fir
exotic hardwoods
exotic softwoods
indigenous (native).

We proposed updates to default carbon tables for the following types of exotic forest:

exotic softwoods
exotic hardwoods
Pinus radiata (radiata pine)

We also proposed to introduce a new forest type and default tables for redwoods. Redwoods are currently in the exotic softwoods forest type but under our proposals redwoods would be separated from exotic softwoods.

These improvements would help to ensure:

the forest types in the NZ ETS reflect the main types of forest grown in New Zealand
the default carbon tables provide robust carbon sequestration estimates
small-scale forestry participants are fairly rewarded for their carbon sequestration.

Summary of proposed regulatory amendments in the NZ ETS

Separate to the default tables proposals, we also proposed some smaller amendments to the Climate Change (Forestry) Regulations 2022. These changes addressed technical issues. They were:

clarifying whether young forests that fail to thrive should be considered first or subsequent rotation under averaging accounting
updating the deadline for the input calculator to align more closely to the deadline for emissions returns
streamlining the processing for transmissions of interest
simplifying the treatment of small areas
future-proofing the method of spatial measurement used for determining land area.

Submissions are public information

Note that all, part, or a summary of your submission may be published on this website. Most often this happens when we issue a document that reviews the submissions received.

People can also ask for copies of submissions under the Official Information Act 1982 (OIA). The OIA says we must make the content of submissions available unless we have good reason for withholding it. Those reasons are detailed in sections 6 and 9 of the OIA.

If you think there are grounds to withhold specific information from publication, make this clear in your submission or contact us. Reasons may include that it discloses commercially sensitive or personal information. However, any decision MPI makes to withhold details can be reviewed by the Ombudsman, who may direct us to release it.

Official Information Act 1982 – NZ Legislation