OPINIONA report titled “Victoria’s Forest Carbon – an opportunity for action on climate change” has recently been released which estimates that the practice of harvesting native forests in Victoria equates to around three million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per year. Or to put it in layman’s terms – the same emissions from 700,000 cars.
Victoria has already agreed to phase out native forest harvesting for native hardwoods by 2030. It ticks a large green box for inner city voters but has placed the communities that rely on these industries into the endangered basket. It also does nothing to help or save the environment or the climate.
The Victoria’s Forest Carbon report propagates the myth that any use of our natural resources is unsustainable and the best thing for the environment is if we all lived in concrete jungles along the eastern seaboard. The non- peer reviewed “report” itself is only 20 pages long so some might call it a pamphlet. It’s also full of glossy pictures to take away the focus of the lack of facts or scientific basis.
The facts are that only 3000 hectares of native forest is harvested in Victoria per year out of an estate of over eight million hectares. These areas must be replanted and actively managed to propagate regrowth and to ensure soil stability. This process includes the burning of forest debris which triggers seedling germination and produces a soil bed for emergent native species.
The calculation of carbon emissions in the Report is not only assessed on the activity itself but on the alleged products it makes including single use items like paper and cardboard. Native timber is actually mainly used for construction timber – particularly appearance grade timbers such as furniture, dining tables, hardwood floors, stairs and even the lining of the new State Parliament annex in Melbourne.
According to Victoria’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions Accounts, emissions from land use, land-use change, and forestry (which includes native harvesting) provided a net sink of 21 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. Victoria has also cut emissions by almost 30 per cent since 2005.
The decision to end native hardwood harvesting in Victoria goes against the direct advice in the most recent United Nations IPPC report that states “in the long term, a sustainable forest management strategy aimed at maintaining or increasing forest carbon stocks, while producing an annual sustained yield of timber, fibre or energy from the forest, will generate the largest sustained mitigation benefit.”
If we are talking about carbon emissions the big question is – if harvesting 3000 hectares of native forest can produce three million tonnes of carbon dioxide – how much carbon was released in the 2020 bushfires in the same forests which are now being locked up?
It has been estimated that more than 830 million tonnes of carbon dioxide released in the 2020 bushfires as 7.4 million hectares of native forests were incinerated – mostly in New South Wales and Victoria. This is double Australia’s total carbon emissions released in six short weeks. It also equates to the emissions from 200,000,000 cars – 10 times the total number of cars in Australia!
Of course, no one wants to talk about this unmitigated disaster which was caused by government incompetence and flawed environmental policies over the past 50 years. This is because it is easier to demonise the native forestry industry, farmers and forest users than actually deal with the much larger problem – government policy which seeks to exclude active human interaction with our natural estate including fire which has been used for 60,000 years to manage our landscape.
