Permanent Forest Sink Initiative

About the PFSI

The Permanent Forest Sink Initiative (PFSI) promotes the establishment of permanent forests on previously unforested land.

It offers land owners the opportunity to earn Kyoto Protocol compliant emission units (Assigned Amount Units or AAUs) for carbon sequestered in permanent forests established after 1 January 1990.

To be eligible the forest must be "direct human induced .... through planting, seeding and/or the human-induced promotion of natural seed sources".

PFSI participants will have a covenant registered against their land titles for a minimum of 50 years.

Limited harvesting is allowed, on a continuous forest canopy cover basis.

Forest owners will meet all costs of administration, monitoring, auditing and compliance and also carry the liability for maintaining the carbon stocks.

The PFSI is complementary to the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme for forestry. Landownders may also want to consider their options under the ETS and the Afforestation Grant Scheme.

For more information please see the documents and contacts below.

If you require additional information or wish to apply contact Pat Hawinkels
Tel: 07 921 3405
Cell: 029 921 3405

Proposed PFSI Carbon Accounting System - Report to MAF by PFSI Carbon Accounting Design Team

An essential requirement of the PFSI is to develop a cost-effective and scientifically defensible process for measuring carbon in PFSI forests.

The carbon assessment processes for PFSI cannot rely on the national carbon accounting process (Land Use & Carbon Analysis System (LUCAS)) as this operates at a national scale, and will not provide an estimate specific to any one PFSI forest.

Nevertheless there is a strong degree of overlap between the two and it will be essential that there is an acceptable likelihood that carbon credits devolved to landowners under the PFSI do not exceed the number of internationally recognised credits earned by the Government (using LUCAS) for the same class of land.

This report [PDF 531K] is the first stage in developing a carbon assessment methodology for the PFSI. It recommends a process by which carbon stocks in PFSI forests are determined for the purposes of allocating emission units.

The process must take into account both the tonnes of carbon accumulated on a per hectare basis and the area over which units may be claimed to enable a total carbon stock assessment for the covenanted PFSI forest area.

Bulletins (Latest information on the PFSI)

Issue 5 - September 2007   - PDF version [580K PDF]
Issue 4 - April 2007   - PDF version [225K PDF]
Issue 3 - December 2006   - PDF version [240K PDF]
Issue 2 - September 2005   - PDF version [205K PDF]
Issue 1 - February 2005   - PDF version [250K PDF]

Consultation Document

Permanent Forest Sink Initiative: Proposed regulations, cost recovery methods and forest sink covenant (submissions closed 14 May 2007)

Outline of PFSI

Forest Sink Covenant and Regulations

Cabinet Papers and Decisions

  • A Proposed Mechanism to Facilitate Permanent (Non-Harvest) "Commercial" Forest Sinks, 05-05-04 [PDF versionPDF  96K]
  • Cabinet Paper - A Proposed Mechanism to Incentivise Permanent (Non-Harvest) "Commercial" Forest Sinks, 02-05-03 [PDF versionPDF  315K]
  • Cabinet Minute - "Proposed Mechanism to Facilitate Permanent (Non-Harvest) 'Commercial' Forest Sinks" POL Min (04) 9/7 [PDF versionPDF  199K]

Reports and Briefings

Contact for Enquiries

Indigenous Forestry Unit
Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry

14 Sir William Pickering Drive
PO Box 20 280
Bishopdale
Christchurch 8053
NEW ZEALAND

Tel: 64 3 943 3700
Fax: 64 3 943 3701

Te Papa Tipu Innovation Park
99 Sala Street
PO Box 1340
Rotorua
NEW ZEALAND

Tel: 64 7 921 3400
Fax: 64 7 921 3401

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