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The voluntary carbon market (VCM) is a relatively mature field where institutions have become firmly established. This empirical paper explores findings obtained from interviewing key actors within the VCM in New Zealand, at a time when the organizational field was beginning to emerge (2010/2011). Fourteen semi-structured interviews were carried out with managers and decision-makers at 13 organizations, representing a cross-section of leaders in the field at the time. Participants were investigated regarding their cognitions as well as their operational activities and interactions with the range of actors in the field, and how these evolved over time. Case studies of the wine industry, the taxi industry and the carbon services industry are presented. Findings identify a number of early successes, including endeavors which focused on promoting market integrity through infrastructure and knowledge sharing amongst participants, which influenced others to shift behavior around climate change mitigation in general. Setbacks are evident as well, with the primary setback characterized as market stagnation: buyers and sellers drifting away from the market. Communication challenges, low certification recognition, risk of greenwash exposure, policy uncertainty, the global financial crisis and general disenchantment with the carbon market were listed as some of the causes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concerns about climate change and water quality make it necessary to have a better understanding of the cycling of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) within landscapes. In New Zealand, pastoral farming on hill country is a major land use, and there is little information available at a landscape level on the cycling of C and N within these systems, particularly the impacts of land use intensification. Published information on the individual components of C and N cycles in hill country pastoral systems was used to construct simple C and N models for two notional hill country paddocks with contrasting amounts of annual net herbage accumulation (NHA). These simple models of C and N cycling were used to explore the potential impacts of intensification on soil C and N pools. The C and N models constructed illustrate that both the C and N cycles in hill country pastoral farming are characterised by large fluxes in and out of the system and relatively small annual accumulations or depletions of their respective soil pools. The mechanisms by which these inward and outward fluxes are generated differ greatly between C and N. Most of the C cycling through the soil/plant/animal system in a year is sourced from the atmosphere through photosynthesis in that same year and the annual quantity of C ingested by grazing animals is only approximately 25% of that fixed annually. In contrast, the annual quantity of N ingested by grazing animals is 300–400% of that added to the system annually by fixation, and most of this ingested N (>80%) is returned to the soil in animal excreta. This contrasts with <25% of ingested C returned in animal excreta. Grazing animals, with their propensity to exhibit camping behaviour, are therefore much more influential in the spatial redistribution of N than C in hill country pastures. The simple C and N models presented in this paper indicate that while land use intensification results in increased inputs of both C and N to the soil, intensification is also likely to result in increased losses of C and N from the soil pool. Which of these processes dominates in a given situation determines whether intensification will result in an increase or decrease of soil C and N. Based on a simple C model, we postulate that if intensification increases NHA by one unit there is likely to be an increase in soil C unless at the same time increased grazing pressure results in at least a three-unit increase in dry matter eaten/harvested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]