Stop logging … reduce emissions

Geoff Law Wilderness Society MR

“The Rudd Government has no excuse to allow destruction of Australia’s native forests to continue.”

MEDIA RELEASE 30 September 2008

GARNAUT SAYS THAT STOPPING LOGGING OF NATIVE FORESTS CAN REDUCE EMISSIONS

Report is an endorsement of Wilderness Society calls for native forests to be protected and logging shifted to plantations.

The Final Report of Professor Ross Garnaut says that Australia’s greenhouse emissions can be reduced significantly if logging of native forests and land-clearing are stopped immediately, according to the Wilderness Society.

Table 22.2 on page 543 of Professor Garnaut’s final report, released today, says that 136 million tonnes of CO2 of Australia’s net greenhouse emissions could be avoided if logging ceased in 14.5 million hectares of eucalypt forests in south-east Australia (including Tasmania). This is equivalent to 24% of Australia’s net greenhouse-gas emissions in 2005.

The table also says that additional emission-reductions will occur if all clearing of land for agriculture also ceases.

“The Rudd Government has no excuse to allow destruction of Australia’s native forests to continue,” said the Wilderness Society’s Tasmanian Campaign Manager Geoff Law.

“Australia can massively reduce its damaging greenhouse-gas emissions if we stop logging immediately in the majority of our native forests,” said Mr Law. “A transition to Australia’s existing stands of fast-growing plantations should be implemented for the timber industry.”

“The message to the Rudd Government is simple. Save the native forests. Log the plantations.”

The Report also acknowledges that international estimates on how much carbon occurs in a standing native forest may be conservative. It quotes figures by the Australian National University indicating that Australia’s native forests contain about three times as much carbon as estimated by international climate authorities. (S. 22.3.7, page 556).

Given the significant emissions-reduction potential in forestry and other industries identified by Garnaut, his recommendation for Australia to reduce its emissions by as low as 5% by 2020 potentially condemns the world to dangerous climate change. To play its part Australia must reduce its emissions by 40% of 1990 levels by 2020.