Garnaut Response: Natural forests' carbon value must be resolved before emissions trading

The Wilderness Society (Tasmania) Inc
Media Release
4 July 2008

The deep cuts necessary to address climate change can only be achieved if the role of forests is properly measured and the value of native forests recognized, The Wilderness Society said today.
 
The role of forests in storing carbon and its importance in the fight against climate change received overdue recognition in the report released by Professor Garnaut today but native forests can store more carbon than plantations and this has yet to be properly recognised.
 
“There are huge carbon stocks in our native forests that must be properly valued and protected. They must not be forgotten as an essential tool to enable Australia to deliver the substantial cuts needed to help solve climate change,” Virginia Young from The Wilderness Society said.
 
“Australia’s current approach to accounting for forest carbon is inadequate. We are yet to properly account for the huge CO2 emissions each year from logging native forests and instead we hide these emissions behind an ever expanding plantation estate.
 
“Reducing logging and increasing protection of native forests in Australia offers an immediate reduction in emissions and longer term secure carbon sequestration and storage.
 
“When it comes to forest carbon there is a simple rule: the bigger the tree, the more carbon there is stored in it.”
 
Ms Young said the timber industry is attempting to mislead government by lobbying for carbon credits when in reality its activities in native forests lead to the release of millions of tonnes of CO2 each year.
 
Emissions from forestry activities in native forests can be as high as 3,670 tonnes of CO2 per hectare.
 
Ms Young said governments are continuing to take the easy option of subsidizing more plantations even though the carbon captured in them will be released into the atmosphere in a few years.
 
“Plantations are a poor carbon stock compared to native forests. Global research has found that carbon sequestered and stored in undisturbed, natural forests is larger, more resilient and longer term than the modest amount of carbon sequestered in monocultures destined to be cut down every 15 years.”