Eric Abetz
A vibrant sustainable native and plantation forestry sector offers one of the best solutions to offset carbon dioxide emissions currently available.
The Greens’ claim that sustainable forest management is bad for the environment and bad for Co2 levels. This is patently false. Rather, it is one of the few carbon positive sectors in the Australian economy.
In fact, the Australian Greenhouse Office has identified that new plantations established since 1990 deliver over 20 million tonnes in carbon offsets per annum – and this is without taking into account the increased carbon accumulation from native forests, or the storage in timber products.
It is a scientific fact that young, vigorous trees absorb more Co2 than old, mature trees.
When a tree is harvested, the Co2 it has absorbed is not immediately returned to the atmosphere. Rather, it remains stored in either the wood or paper product which that tree is converted to. And even the residue of that tree, which may be burnt on the forest floor to facilitate new trees or burnt to create energy, only returns to the atmosphere a very small percentage of the Co2 which the tree initially took out.
So when a tree is harvested and another planted in its place (or in Australia’s case, another four trees are planted), Co2 is gradually being removed from the atmosphere in an environmentally friendly way, whilst simultaneously providing for the legitimate human need of wood and wood products.
By contrast, many of our old growth forests are saturated in terms of the amount of Co2 they can absorb, and as bits of the forest die and break down, they release Co2 back into the atmosphere, often as fast as they absorb it.
Don’t misunderstand me. I am a strong supporter of preserving our old growth forests. Moreover the Howard Government is gradually moving the timber industry out of old growth forests and into alternatives such as regrowth forests and plantations.
However, not only do the Greens simplistically claim that preserving old growth forests – which are at best carbon neutral – is the only solution forests offer to Co2 levels, they are also against new plantations, the best carbon sinks going!
The Greens also glibly claim that harvesting forests is bad for Co2 levels. This is wrong. In fact, it is only true in the case of complete deforestation – something which does not occur in the Australian forest sector.
Forced to justify their illogical position on plantation forestry, the Greens are now trotting out a new argument – that plantations take more water from our catchments than farms.
This is true, but there are plenty of areas where plantations use water which would otherwise be unused or eventually flow out to sea. Also, plantations have to comprise more than 20% of a catchment in order to have any impact on run-offs. Furthermore, planting trees has the environmental effect of reducing salinity levels.
Alternatives to timber based products such as concrete, plastic and aluminium create tremendous amounts of Co2 and consumer water in their production.
The simple fact is, if you are serious about addressing Greenhouse and the Co2 levels in the atmosphere, then you must be serious about sustainably managed native forests and an expanding planted forest resource.
Whereas this Government advocates a balance of protected forests, sustainable forestry and plantation forestry, the Greens advocate simply locking-up forest and forgetting it.
Go figure.
