Logging of Australia's pristine old growth forests is dangerously accelerating the effects of global warming, accounting for twenty per cent of our annual greenhouse gas emissions.

A study conducted by the Australian National University and the Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Accounting found that Australian forests can sequester and store up to 1500 tonnes of carbon
per hectare if maintained as mature old growth.

The Howard government however continues to allow Australia's unique forests to be logged at disastrous rates. In Tasmania alone the equivalent of forty-five football fields of old growth forest is clearfelled each day. These forests are first logged then burnt, releasing huge quantities of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The same ANU study has found that the carbon store of these forests is dramatically reduced to around 300-500 tonnes of carbon per hectare if they are subject to 80 year logging cycles.

“Logging is clearly contributing massively to global warming” said Matthew Wright, lead campaigner for Beyond Zero Emissions. “Unfortunately Tasmania has suffered under state and federal governments conspiring with the likes of the Gunns Corporation. Some of the worst logging in the world is occurring in that state.”

The forest industry maintains that logging forests sequesters carbon by storing it in highly valued commercial wood products. Yet according to Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics statistics, less than 10 per cent of eucalyptus trees logged in Australia end up as sawn timber. The vast remainder is woodchipped for low-grade often short-lived products, such as brown paper bags and packaging.

“We need urgent legislation from the Australian government to protect what remains of our old growth forests,” said Mr. Wright. Unsustainable logging is crippling the country. The vast clearfelling in the Murray-Darling Basin is one of the main reasons for the region's shortage of water.

“Native forests create clouds and humidity which result in local precipitation. Those same clouds also reflect large amounts of sunlight back into space. Logging not only releases phenomenal amounts of naturally sequestered carbon from forest soils and canopy, but also allows greater light penetration through the atmosphere causing heating and a positive feedback loop.

“Australia's beautiful old growth and native forests are protecting us from the devastating effects of climate change. Prime Minister John Howard should think about conserving Australia's forests before he gives aid to other countries to conserve theirs.”

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CSIRO - The biology of global warming and its profitable mitigation – Cloud Forests

Autumn break may be gone for good

Carbon offset program that doesn't include any logging. Climate Positive
aims to get consumers to reduce their emissions then offset 130% of what
is left, using 100% Wind Power and 30% habitat regeneration.
http://www.climatepositive.com.au/

Howard plans to go green next door

If carbon is priced at $50 a tonne and forestry & land use is included in any scheme, then an initial logging cycle of old growth forest would reduce the carbon store by 400 tonnes per hectare and cost the industry $20,000 per hectare. An effective end to old growth logging in Australia

PM's $200m plan to save forests

Is Carbon The New Uranium?

Clouds prefer native vegetation T. J. Lyons

References

Dean C, Roxburgh S, Mackey B (2003), Growth Modelling of Eucalyptus
regnans for Carbon Accounting at the Landscape Scale, (CRC for
Greenhouse Accounting, Australian National University)

Roxburgh S, Wood S, Mackey B, Woldendorp G, Gibbons P (2006), Assessing
the carbon sequestration potential of managed forests: a case study from
temperate Australia, Journal of Applied Ecology

For comment ring:
Matt Wright 0421 616 733
Adrian Whitehead 0403 735 118
Adrian Whitehead is currently touring Tasmania giving a series of zero
emission talks.

www.beyondzeroemissions.org
Beyond Zero Emissions is an independent Zero Emission Minus Climate
Change campaign.