Large areas of New Zealand are planted in exotic pine plantations, these trees are fertilized with phosphates imported from overseas mines, the trees are harvested periodically denuding the mountains and hillsides where runoff and erosion silt streams and harbors impacting endemics aquatic and marine species. These exotic monocultures displace native plant species and the habitat they create for endemic fauna.
The dominance of plantation forestry based on a softwood mainly used in relatively short-lived products suggests that the carbon capture itself is relatively short term.
Further where incentives are such that producing farms are converted to forestry the impact on rural communities is beginning to be felt with the closure of schools and other facilities as remote populations working on the land in agriculture are reduced.
Its not just a simple matter of planting a tree and capturing the carbon.
“Policy measures to discourage: Planting trees, either for bioenergy or as long-term carbon sinks, should focus on restoring and expanding native woodlands and avoid creating large monoculture plantations that do not support high levels of biodiversity. Simple targets such as ‘numbers of trees planted’ ignore biodiversity considerations, such as long-term survival of trees or stewardship, and can be misleading, potentially contributing to policy failure and misuse of carbon offsets.”