Tasmania has a unique aura that stems from its wilderness areas, especially the old growth forests. If you walk among the lofty trees, giant ferns, ugly colourful fungi clinging to bark and fairy lichen floating from branches and breathe in the damp woody smell, it feeds the primeval depths of your soul. What you can’t see are all the creatures that retreat from human presence, Tasmanian devils, quolls, Simsons stag beetles or freshwater crayfish, all of them endangered species.

Trees take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through the miracle of photosynthesis. Their leaves contain millions of green chlorophyll cells that use solar power to convert carbon dioxide from the air and water sent up from the roots into a store of carbon. The waste product of photosynthesis is oxygen, the lifeforce for all animals including humans. We depend on that oxygen for survival.

Trees and plants have been removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere for the last 300 million years. However, before the dawn of the human species there were an estimated 6 trillion trees within the biosphere. Today, the estimated number is only 3.04 trillion trees, roughly half.

In the old growth forests of Tasmania there are trees that are many centuries old. They have stood their ground longer than any human being. Some were growing tall before the industrial revolution began in the mid-18th century, when the transition from hand tools to machines led to a rapid growth in human population around the world.

Those humans have harvested trees for the wood and cleared forests to produce food. Approximately one third of the global land surface is now agricultural land.  In some countries forests have been cleared on a vast scale to grow commodities such as beef, soybeans, palm oil, corn and cotton on an industrial basis for international trade. These areas are never likely to become forests again.

And the level of carbon dioxide in the air is increasing, largely due to the fossil fuels that we burn for energy. The increased carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are trapping heat causing the earth’s temperature to rise at an alarming rate. Although this only began in the mid-18th century, a mere three centuries ago, the consequences for the environment are already highly evident. The polar ice is melting and sea levels are rising. Here at home, the Great Barrier Reef is approaching another mass coral bleaching event, and the bushfires of 2019-20 killed nearly three billion animals including the iconic koala.

The rate of climate change may appear slow in terms of the average human lifespan, but is occurring in the blink of an eye in terms of the longevity of the planet.

Forests are acknowledged as one of the most important ways to address the effects of climate change. Approximately 2.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, one-third of the CO2 released from burning fossil fuels, is absorbed worldwide by forests every year through the natural process of photosynthesis.

At the COP26 climate conference held in Glasgow last year, more than one hundred countries confirmed their efforts to conserve forests and other terrestrial ecosystems and accelerate their restoration. One of those countries was Australia. But there have been many such declarations before, with little effect. What must follow such a declaration is for governments to change their legislation and policies concerning deforestation. If governments don’t change what they are doing to bring emissions from fossil fuels to zero, restore degraded lands and sustain forests, declarations like this are meaningless.

Dr Kate Dooley at Melbourne University’s Climate & Energy College says that protecting existing forests is a priority, given the critical time frame we are in now to keep climate change under the 1.5℃ or even 2℃ thresholds. Despite this, logging companies in Tasmania, supported by the State government and local councils continue to harvest old growth forests.

Recently the government logging agency Sustainable Timbers Tasmania started logging the old forests around Derby in the north-east of the state.

Logging the huge old trees in Tasmania that have been here for centuries totally repudiates climate science, breaks the COP26 pledge and breaks our hearts.

The planet is approaching tipping points, the critical thresholds for environmental systems – thresholds that once exceeded may be irreversible. Scientists have identified an increasing number of potential tipping points such as the West Antarctic ice sheet disintegration, the Amazon forest die-back and coral reef bleaching events.

Professor Tim Lenton, director of the Global Systems Institute at Britain’s University of Exeter says that the rate at which we are approaching tipping points is alarming. He expresses the view that “most of our current generation of politicians are just not up to this leadership task.” That is certainly the case in Tasmania.

We urgently need a new generation of politicians, young people who understand the climate emergency, have a vested interest in protecting their future and are prepared to make the right decisions and develop the right policies right now.


Dr Janet Truslove has worked as a livestock veterinarian in Scotland and Queensland and now lives on a farm in Tasmania where regenerative agriculture is practised. She walks the hills and forests and puts pressure on governments to act on climate change. Twitter: @janetisnow.