Download - New Zealand Society of Soil Science

etween agriculture and environment is an essential part of finding ways forward, for us now, and for
the next generation of scientists and policy makers.‖
Pro Vice-Chancellor of the College of Sciences at Massey University Professor Robert Anderson says
that he is very pleased that Professor Parsons elected Massey to be the host institution for the new
Chair.
―Massey is building its capability in the greenhouse gas emission arena and Professor Parson‘s
expertise is an invaluable addition.‖
Professor Anderson also said that AGMARDT is to be congratulated for taking this particular
initiative, and he welcomed yet another co-appointment between Massey and AgResearch.
Articles
CarbonNet Report
In August, soil carbon researchers met to formulate ideas around the re-establishment of a group to coordinate
collaboration in response to climate change policy development. This meeting followed
discussion at the SLURI Soil Carbon meeting convened by Alec Mackay in July. A late July
teleconference of 18 researchers was organised by Alec (no mean feat!) and successfully drew up an
agenda for action.
University and CRI scientists elected a group of six to go forward to a second meeting where structure
of the leadership group would be established. At the second meeting it was agreed that a widely
representative leadership group would be most effective and we elected Frank Kelliher as Chair,
Carolyn Hedley as Co-ordinator, and Tim Payn (Scion), Louis Schipper (University of Waikato), Troy
Baisden (GNS) and Brent Clothier (Plant & Food) as a support committee.
The CarbonNet logo was created by Troy Baisden and Darren D'Cruz at GNS Science, in consultation
with the 6 member CarbonNet support group. The logo captures the role of soil in New Zealand's
productive and natural landscapes. The graphic conceptually depicts many of our prominent current
land uses in colour and pattern. The koru (spiral) symbol represents the ever-evolving nature of land
use.
Our mission statement is:
CarbonNet connects New Zealand‟s soil carbon research community. CarbonNet provides
expert knowledge and advice on the role of soil carbon processes and inventories to government
and other parties interested in climate change mitigation.
We aim to act as a conduit for soil carbon research to climate change policy development. With the
Copenhagen meeting in December and uncertainties around a national policy for soil carbon
accounting, we recognise policy issues can be as challenging as the science. From this perspective,
our inception seemed timely. The Copenhagen meeting will be a first meeting of UNFCCC parties
with an agenda to discuss a new international protocol to address global climate change beyond the
Kyoto Protocol commitment period that ends 2012. Representatives of 170 countries, including New
Zealand, are expected to attend this meeting. Another relevant, recent development in New Zealand is
the upcoming virtual Centre for Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Emissions Research, with an emphasis
on mitigation. This government initiative will be established early in 2010.
At the risk of impertinence, we will not recount here a list of current, soil carbon research projects and
programmes that are potentially relevant to policy development. Rather we will try to convey
stakeholder perspectives communicated to us at our inaugural meeting on 24 September in Wellington.
Stakeholders challenged us to consider soil carbon accounting from their points of view and basically
asked: how can research contribute?
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