This week, Forestry Minister Peeni Henare said the Government was "empowering" local councils to decide which land could be used for production forestry and carbon forests through the resource consent process.
The changes were about getting the right tree in the right place, by seeing fewer pine forests planted on farmland and more on less productive land, he said.
"This gets the balance right by giving communities a voice, while not restricting the purchasing of land or ability for farmers to choose to sell their farms to whomever they want," he said.
But Mr Dodson, who is chief executive of Dunedin-based City Forests, said placing planting decisions in the hands of local authorities "adds another layer of ill-considered regulation that will dictate and limit what landowners can do with their land".
The proposed changes focused unduly on the expansion of forestry and displacement of highly productive land, Mr Dodson said.
"The premise that forestry is swallowing valuable pieces of highly productive land simply isn’t true.
"Plantation forestry occupies just 1.76millionha of the 13.5millionha of agricultural land and has an export return that’s three times greater than sheep and beef production per hectare.
"In 2021, the estate expanded by just 1.1% and even then, it is still 70,000ha smaller than it was 20 years ago.
"Even if we achieve by 2035 the ‘hectarage’ of new forestry planting that the Climate Change Commission is recommending, this would still only mean a 3-4% conversion of land from farming to forestry."
The announcement was contradictory to the Climate Change Commission’s emissions reduction plan which championed the forestry and wood processing sector as the vehicle for reducing the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.
"Offsetting is a necessary part of land use change and forests are the only tool we have at present to achieve those offsets. Without expansion of forests, reaching carbon zero won’t be possible," he said.
Mr Henare said the forestry sector was important to local economies, contributing more than $6.5billion annually and providing more than 35,000 jobs.
However, large-scale changes in land use for exotic carbon forestry, if left unchecked and without any management oversight or requirements, has the potential for unintended impacts on the environment, rural communities, and regional economies.
"The devastation that unfolded in Te Tairāwhiti during Cyclone Gabrielle was a stark reminder what can happen if we get land-use settings wrong," he said.
Operational changes proposed to the forestry standards regarding slash provisions, sediment control and harvest management plans would start to improve the environmental impacts.
The Government was also progressing further work to redesign the permanent forest category with a goal of enabling a successful transition from exotic species to indigenous forests.
