Recent efforts by some governments and green groups to argue that native forest harvesting should cease because there is more to be made from keeping the carbon standing have been countered by well-credentialled forest scientists, including Dr John Raison in Wood Central.
The political pressure on native forest timber production is immense, and governments will crack, making a virtue out of their political decisions, spinning their reasons to sound pure, and confecting their motives to be solely for the country’s good. I have previously written on the six reasons the WA Government gave for ending timber harvesting, finding serious flaws in each and, in some cases, documentary evidence in government publications that contradicted their claims.
In the case of carbon, they claimed that by stopping forest harvesting, they would reduce carbon emissions. This is despite the WA government’s own data detailing the gain of carbon sinks (CO2-e) in forests harvested for timber production, which has been up to an additional 30 million tonnes over 10 years. (Between 3 and 5% of the carbon stocks) This was due to the regrowth performance as the planned harvest level remained unchanged.
We are now seeing the NSW government and conservation groups support models that calculate a reduction in carbon emissions from ending native forest harvesting but also seek to monetise it. Following that path would seem to involve a significant risk. The latest State of the Forests update clearly indicates that forest managed for timber production have increased their carbon stocks over the past 20 years (about 3%) but that conservation forests have decreased their stocks (-1%).
If this data is correct, removing timber production from forests will result in a net reduction in carbon sinks of about 0.2% per annum (and between 0.3 and 0.5% if the WA data is used).
What happens then? Should governments responsible for ending timber harvesting pay the cost of the reduced carbon stocks compared to business as usual, i.e., continuing timber production?
In WA with forests carrying 200 – 300 tonnes of CO2 per hectare and Australian Carbon Credit Units being worth around $35, Premier Cook should be finding 400,000 ACCUs to compensate for ending harvesting in 800,000 ha of State forest, or writing a cheque for $14 million…each year. Faced with the real loss of carbon storage I guess politicians might be less keen to produce their own ‘alternative facts”.
Please Note: Wood Central doest not take an editorial stance on the Australian native forest debate. It will, however from time to time, publish opinion articles that it deems to be in the public interest. And will fact check all articles before posting.
