New Zealand Legislation: Regulations

16 Rules for application of tables in Schedule 4

• The following rules must be used when applying the tables in Schedule 4 for the purpose of calculating emissions under regulation 15:

  • (a) the age of a tree is the number of years from the year of planting or regeneration of the tree to the year of clearing of the tree, no matter when in the relevant year the tree was planted, regenerated, or cleared:

    Example

    A tree is planted at any time in 1985 and felled at any time during 2011. For the purposes of applying the tables in Schedule 4, the tree is 26 years old.

  • (b) if a tree regenerates on land on which a forest species was cleared immediately prior to the regeneration, the tree is to be treated for the purposes of paragraph (a) as having regenerated in the year following the year in which the forest species was cleared:

    Example

    An area of forest land contains regenerating Douglas fir. The Douglas fir was last harvested from the land in 2008. For the purposes of determining the age of the trees under paragraph (a), the current Douglas fir is treated as having regenerated in 2009.

  • (c) the forest type of a hectare of forest land is—

    • (i) Pinus radiata if the predominant forest species on the land is Pinus radiata; or

    • (ii) Douglas fir if the predominant forest species on the land is Douglas fir; or

    • (iii) exotic softwoods if the predominant forest species on the land is an exotic softwood; or

    • (iv) exotic hardwoods if the predominant forest species on the land is an exotic hardwood:

  • (d) the predominant forest species for the purposes of paragraph (c) is the forest species that constitutes the largest volume of timber:

    Example

    A hectare of pre-1990 forest land contains 2 main forest species when cleared, 1 from exotic hardwoods, and 1 from exotic softwoods. The trees from the exotic hardwoods constitute the largest volume of timber. The forest type for the purpose of applying the tables in Schedule 4 is exotic hardwoods.

  • (e) if trees cleared from land are older than the last age on the table for that forest type, the age for those trees is the last age on the table:

    Example

    An area of forest land is cleared of 58-year-old exotic softwoods. The figure for carbon stock per hectare for 50-year-old trees (the last age on table 2 in Schedule 4) is to be used.

  • (f) if a hectare of forest land contains trees of mixed ages, the weighted average age of the trees of the forest type is to be taken as the age of the trees:

    Example

    A participant clears a hectare of intermingled Pinus radiata in Otago of which 70% are 30 years old and 30% are 15 years old. The age of those trees is their weighted average age of 25.5 years ((30 years x 0.7) + (15 years x 0.3) = 25.5 years).

  • (g) if, under paragraph (f),—

    • (i) the age of the trees is not a whole number, the age must be rounded to the nearest whole number:

    • (ii) the age of the trees includes 0.5 of a year, the number must be rounded up to the nearest whole number.