Afforestation has become more and more common in recent years, as the price of carbon has begun to rapidly escalate, and many New Zealanders have watched with horror the largescale conversion of farmland. As a sheep farmer's daughter, it has been a painful discussion around the dinner table on many an occasion. Whereas the price of carbon at the outset of this law was about $30 a unit, in the intervening years it's climbed to about $75, and some would predict it could well end up being at about $200. But, even at the current carbon prices, it's not unheard of for the profitability of forests to be around $2,000 per hectare, and when you look at hill country sheep and beef farming at around $400 a hectare and finishing at about $750 a hectare, you can understand why these largescale land-use conversions are taking place.