Skip to this page's content Skip to access keys
Go to home page [Ministry for the Environment]

Home | Contact us | Related links | Site map
Working
with you		 | The
issues		 | Laws and
treaties		 | State of the
environment		 | Publications | About the
Ministry

You are here: The issues Contains: Climate change Contains: Land Use and Carbon Analysis System (LUCAS) Contains:

New Zealand’s circumstances

Historical factors

  • Rapid changes in land use since the 1840s and little detailed documentation of this: This means that New Zealand needs the ability to map land-use changes in detail since the 1990’s - which is a substantial undertaking
  • Considerable afforestation since 1990 (~0.6 million hectares): The exact location of the afforested areas is currently unknown – consequently this also involves detailed mapping of land-use change since 1990.

Management factors

  • All New Zealand forests are managed: New Zealand has to account for carbon stock changes across all forest (as opposed to countries with unmanaged forest, which does not need to be accounted for)
  • No national forest inventory: This means we need to initiate, develop and implement appropriate forest carbon inventories
  • No database/analysis system that would meet Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Good Practice Guidance (GPG) for Land use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) activities: We need to specify and implement to an operational stage the database.

There have been substantial changes in land use in NZ since
the 1840s

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There has been considerable afforestation in New Zealand since 1990 – around 0.6 million hectares