Lifestyle-block owners claim carbon credits with help of NZ tech firm

 If people could earn carbon credits for every tree they had growing in their backyard, they might currently be entitled to a dollar or two per year for each tree.

But as it is, land-owners need to have a hectare of land to benefit from farming carbon credits under current legislation, which is designed to make the issuance of carbon credits manageable.

Even then, it has been difficult in practice for individuals, including those who own lifestyle blocks, to claim credits for reforesting such small blocks of land.

That is changing though, thanks to Nelson-based start-up CarbonCrop which is aiming to build a global niche in taking the hassle out of claiming credits on blocks of land as small as one hectare.

When Ron, a retired motelier who wanted to be identified only by his first name, decided to buy a 7 hectare block of land between Kaeo and Mangōnui in Northland in 2015 to live on and permanently reforest, he found earning and selling carbon credits was something of a big boys’ game.

He wanted to reforest the hillside property, which was mostly grass but had a small patch of native bush, to make a permanent contribution to the environment.

“I’m very comfortable leaving it, not as a legacy, but knowing it will become a small pocket of bush over time.”

He started off by planting manuka and since then has had success with natives including matai, kowhai and pigeonwood.

“It can be a little bit of hard work obviously and sometimes I get frustrated because trees take a little while to grow, but it is very rewarding.

“What I’d like to do is put a covenant on it. We're probably looking at about 500 years before it really turns into proper forest.”

For him, the possibility of earning carbon credits was just a bonus.

“I couldn’t find out anything about carbon credits really. It is very difficult to get anything sensible out of the Government websites.”

But he is expecting his first annual receipt of carbon credits worth about $2000 in the next few weeks, after getting CarbonCrop to deal with the red tape and then set him up with a carbon-credit account.

“I got in touch with CarbonCrop to get set up and they did everything from that point.”