New Zealand farms shift to carbon forests: Carbon credits fuel a land rush reshaping rural life
For almost 20 years, New Zealand has run one of the world's most ambitious tree-planting programs, approving nearly 9,000 square kilometres of carbon-credit forest, roughly 11 times the size of New York City. Under its Emissions Trading Scheme, forest owners earn carbon credits as trees grow, credits companies buy to offset emissions. It's made forestry more profitable than traditional sheep and cattle farming, but critics say the scheme leans too heavily on offsets, hollowing out rural communities and quietly pushing up the cost of meat.
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