Research finds native forests key to fighting climate change

The Wilderness Society Inc
Media Release       
5 August 2008

An urgent end to logging of the carbon dense native forests in NSW, Victoria and Tasmania is now needed to ensure they play their crucial role in Australia’s fight against climate change, The Wilderness Society said today following revelations in world-first research from the Australian National University.

The world-first research showed that unlogged native forests store three times more carbon than previously thought by both the Australian government and by leading international climate change experts.

Wilderness Society spokesperson Virginia Young said the ANU research findings should prompt governments to take a fresh and un-biased look at the role protecting and restoring native forests could play in helping Australia make the deep cuts to greenhouse gas emissions needed within the next 10 years.

“State and federal governments have to date failed to examine two critical issues: how much carbon dioxide could be prevented from entering the atmosphere if logging of native forests is stopped and how much carbon dioxide could be pulled out of the atmosphere if native forests are allowed to recover from logging.

“Given that Australia has enough plantations to meet almost all our timber needs and that every other major greenhouse gas emitter is being asked to substantially reduce emissions, it seems absurd to exempt this sector from close examination.”

Ms Young said that scientists last year found that in Victoria alone carbon dioxide emissions from native forest logging were likely to be in the order of 10 million tones per annum.

“It is now time to examine the role protecting and restoring our native forests could play in mitigating climate change.

“It is clear from the ANU research that focusing native forest management on protection and restoration could make a major contribution to Australia’s yet to be determined greenhouse gas reduction targets.”