As this nation continues with insanity in planting large acreages of hill country in Pine trees sans the normal forest planting strategies with a view to husbandry and ultimate harvest there is a vast risk of fire.

During my time at Akaroa being involved in first response I had a grandstand observation seat when a Thunderbolt struck a 2000 acre gorse block that wonderfulness had designated a lustrous example of such mindless risk taking .
Dear old Hugh Wilson botanist son of a preacher man who occupied the pulpit of a church we boarders of a Papanui residential center were marched three Kms to every Sunday to sit and be droned on, set out to reforest the 2000 acres in native bush and ultimately sometho=ing resembling what confronted my Maternal family forebears in the latter half of the 19th century, trying to create productive farmland.

Now anyone with even a passing grasp of reality will understand that much of the Banks Peninsula hill country, not tended with respect for weed infestation, will rapidly become a vast Brer Rabbit Briar patch choked with gorse that can reach cover height well over three meters leaving the theoretical notion of cover for native vegetation in tatters. Add in zero provision of fire breaks and water resources easily accessed by monsoon buckets and the inevitable results emerge.
Such repercussions await much of the plantings for Carbon Credits with similar lacking of forsight for combatting fire risk.
Previous plantings for production forest had fire breaks, tracks for access to cary out pruning thinning and harvest as normal management. Now with the plant and forget idiocy such matters do not register.
Every TV viewer of disaster fire response will see days and weeks of suppression must follow such conflagrations seeking hot spots that with a slight breeze and warm dry temperatures will reignite so easily.

Are the grasping being asked to make any moves to prevent disaster, hell no they just buy plant and take in the rewards for the decades of profit taking then will just walk away satisfied in their brilliant involvement leaving the vast forest to naturally expire most likely in a conflagration that will send every carbon credit into the atmosphere.