Logging Native Forests in Victoria to end by 1 January 2024, saving 14 million tonnes of carbon by 2030

Cudos to Premier Dan Andrews and the State Labor Government who took the giant step of announcing the end to native forest logging in Victoria by 1st January 2024. The State Government announced an extra $200 million in funding for transition of affected workers and communities in the 2023/24 budget.

In October 2022 the Victorian Forest Alliance and The Tree Projects published a report which found that an immediate end to native forest logging could prevent 14 million tonnes of carbon emission by 2030. 

 Key facts from the report:

• Native forest logging in Victoria emitted around 3 million tonnes of carbon in 2021.
• Emissions from native forest logging are equivalent to the annual emissions of 700,000 cars.
• Regrowing forests on average only ever hold up to 50% of the carbon of the original forests before they are logged again.
• Close to 90% of Australia’s wood now comes from Australian plantations.
• Logging plantations produces 60% less carbon dioxide emissions than the logging of native forests.

Transition is always difficult process, but it can bring new opportunities in Land management and conservation of the forests, and for recreational and tourist opportunities. It also helps guarantee the purity of Melbourne's water supply. It opens up roles for indigenous knowledge in land management, conservation and for managing bushfire threat.

We are likely to see the creation of a Great Forests National Park that many conservationists and scientists have called to be established.

Guest Post: Stopping mangrove deforestation in Indonesia could help slow climate change

Coastal wetlands are important carbon sinks, all too often ignored as important ecosystems for preserving and indeed fostering and growing, for mitigation of climate change. In January 2013 I looked at how Mangrove forests threatened by Climate Change in the Sundarbans of Bangladesh and India. In December 2013 I featured a guest post on Philippines steps up restoration of mangroves as defence against typhoons, tsunamis, sea level rise. Read more of my posts on blue carbon. Research has shown that Mangroves among the most carbon-rich forests in the tropics (Donato etal 2011).

Now a new study published in Nature Climate Change identifies the importance of preserving the extensive mangrove forests remaining in Indonesia for reducing it's greenhouse gas emissions.

Soil Carbon sequestration limited in mitigating fossil fuel emissions say scientists

Rebuilding soils through carbon sequestration and mitigating fossil fuel emissions sounds like a win-win solution all around. A reason the Liberal and National Parties in Australia adopted it as a major part of their 2010 Direct Action climate change policy. But a new international study by Australian and UK scientists said soil carbon programs while important, have many limitations, and provide too much false hope in mitigating emissions from fossil fuels.

"The capacity of terrestrial ecosystems to store carbon is finite and the current sequestration potential primarily reflects depletion due to past land use. Avoiding emissions from land carbon stocks and refilling depleted stocks reduces atmospheric CO2 concentration, but the maximum amount of this reduction is equivalent to only a small fraction of potential fossil fuel emissions." (Untangling the confusion around land carbon science and climate change mitigation policy, Brendan Mackey et al, 2013)

Victorian Government knowingly driving Leadbeater's Possum to extinction say scientists

Two distinguished environmental scientists accused the Victorian Government of forestry policies knowingly designed to drive Leadbeater's Possum, one of the two fauna emblems of Victoria, to extinction.

In a letter to sciencemag.org, the publication of the Australian Association for the Advancement of Science, Professors David Lindenmayer and Hugh Possingham say, "Government-sanctioned legal logging of the reserve system will significantly increase the chance of extinction of Leadbeater's possum. To the best of our knowledge, and despite state and national threatened species legislation, this is the first time an Australian government has taken calculated actions to substantially reduce the viability of an IUCN-listed endangered species with full knowledge of the likely consequences." (Read full letter reproduced at end of this article)

Petition: Defer the Bill that would lock-in long-term native forest logging | Help Save Leadbeater's Possum | My Environment Appeal 2013 Leadbeater's Possum | Ethical paper pledge

Seagrass projected to drastically decline with sea level rise

To most of us, what is hidden beneath the waves of our coastal environment remains invisible and is little thought about or cared about. Yet seagrass meadows, though hidden from our direct view, contribute valuable ecological services supporting valuable fish nurseries, as food for dugongs and turtles, and as a highly efficient blue carbon sink sequestering carbon.

A new study of the seagrass meadows in Moreton Bay, Queensland found that a significant proportion of valuable seagrass habitats would be lost without action to offset the affects of climate change. "The area of seagrass habitat was predicted to decline by 17% by 2100 under a scenario of SLR of 1.1 m." said the study.

Lead author Dr Megan Saunders from UQ's Global Change Institute said "Seagrass meadows not only help to slow climate change by sucking up a large portion of the world's plant-stored carbon, but they also benefit livelihoods, food security, fisheries, biodiversity, shoreline protection and other ecosystem services,"

Scientists condemn Queensland Land Clearing changes, warn of biodiversity loss

Leading Queensland environmental scientists are up in arms over changes to Queensland's Vegetation Management Act and the Water Act which will enhance land clearing and destruction of native vegetation important for preserving biodiversity values, ecological services such as clean water and flood mitigation, and carbon sink potential.

"Queensland is the most biodiverse state in Australia," said Dr Martine Maron of The University of Queensland, a spokesperson for the group. "Sadly, it has also seen 30 extinctions, with hundreds more on the threatened list. Ongoing habitat clearing is a major threat to our endangered wildlife."

Land clearing is seen by the scientists as the greatest threat to species biodiversity and also contributes to removing carbon sink capacity. Their concerns are backed up by a peer reviewed scientific report prepared for WWF-Australia - Bushland at risk of renewed clearing in Queensland.

Plant Carbon sequestration capacity in a high CO2 world overestimated

With climate change stimulating plant growth due to elevated CO2 concentrations climate models calculated this would also stimulate uptake and sequestration of carbon. But a new long term (13 year) study looking at plant biomass growth in a high CO2 environment with Nitrogen nutrients indicates that plants also require enriched soil nitrogen to escalate uptake and sequestration of carbon from elevated CO2. Soil nitrogen just cannot be increased on a widespread basis.

Related: Rising atmospheric Carbon Dioxide levels threaten crop yields and food security

Not enough water: food production, carbon sequestration and climate change

A new study has found that there is not enough freshwater to meet the anticipated competing demands of water for food production for the global population of about 9 billion by 2050 and water for optimal growth of biomass for carbon sequestration for climate mitigation. As food production is essential, the authors of the study conclude that large scale carbon sequestration may not be realistic as a major method of climate mitigation, and we may need to rely more on direct reduction of emissions.

We rely on freshwater to drink daily, to bathe in and flush our toilets with; but also for growing our veggies and crops; to grow feed for our animals; for healthy riparian and aquatic habitats and ecosystems; for our forests and wild places to sequester carbon dioxide as biomass carbon sinks. But increasingly we are approaching boundaries and limits on the amount of freshwater available and the trade-offs involved in competing uses.

Seagrass meadows are key carbon sinks for combatting climate change

May 22 is UNESCO's
 International Day for Biological Diversity which focussed strongly on conserving our marine diversity. One of the important marine ecosystems are the seagrass meadows around the coasts of the world. A new global scientific research study just released has shown that seagrass meadows store significantly more carbon than any land based forest. They are very important as carbon sinks. But they are also suffering a major decline due to pollution from agricultural and mining development and chemical runoff, coastal development changing water turbidity upsetting photosynthesis in seagrass, and increasing sea surface temperatures affecting seagrass growth due to global warming.

The new global study of seagrass meadow ecosystems has found that coastal seagrass beds store much more carbon than can be stored in even the most carbon dense forests, such as the temperate native forests of Victoria. Seagrass meadows can store up to 83,000 metric tons of carbon per square kilometre, mostly in the soils below them. In comparison, a typical land forest stores around 30,000 metric tons per square kilometre mostly as wood. It is the first global study to analyze the carbon storage capacity in seagrasses.

Seagrass meadows support a highly level of biodiversity with many fish species using the seagrass during their juvenile period, as well as providing homes for crabs, sea urchin, seahorses shrimp and prawns. Sea tutles, dugongs and manatees depend on seagrass meadows as a primary food source. As Professor Carlos Duarte points out in an article on The Conversation website, Indigenous cultures new the significance and value of seagrass meadows. Conservation and restoration of seagrass ecosystems provides a unique Submarine Carbon Tax Opportunity! Seagrass meadows are intense, but fragile carbon sinks.

More Information: Seagrass Watch | Global Seagrass Monitoring Network

Freshwater wetlands are important carbon sinks says scientific study

A new study has emphasised the importance of the carbon sequestration capacity of freshwater wetlands. The researchers suggest that temperate freshwater wetlands may have a significant part to play in offsetting greenhouse gas emissions as carbon sinks.

Locking in native forest logging: say goodbye to Victorian forest carbon sinks

The Victorian Coalition Government have given a green light to their logging mates by announcing the expansion of native forest logging and locking in to place much longer native forest logging contracts.

In a statement yesterday Agriculture and Food Security Minister National Party MP Peter Walsh released the Timber Industry Action Plan. Under the plan Vicforests would be able to harvest and sell timber through supply agreements of up to 20 years, instead of the current maximum five year period. VicForests will also be given the right to sell timber in a variety of ways, including both timber auctions and other sales arrangements. And contract clauses will be written in to provide compensation if there happens to be a change of government policy in the future (as sometimes happens in a democracy).

Coastal ecosystems suffer 100 fold decrease in capacity to store carbon mitigating climate change

The carbon sink capacity of urbanized river estuary and coastal environments to mitigate climate change has reduced by 100 fold according to scientists from the University of Technology Sydney. The Scientists used core samples from Botany Bay in Sydney to reconstruct the sedimentation changes in the past 6000 years, highlighting the changes in the ecology. The plant samples in the sedimentation changed as rapid industrialisation occurred around Botany Bay during the 1950s.

"We have effectively gone back in time and monitored carbon capture and storage by coastal ecosystems, finding a 100-fold weakening in the ability of coastal ecosystems to sequester carbon since the time of European settlement. This severely hampered the ability of nature to reset the planet's thermostat." said Dr. Peter Macreadie, University of Technology, Sydney Chancellor's Postdoctoral Research Fellow.

Logging of Victorian mountain ash forests increases bushfire risk

New scientific research published in September 2011 highlights that logging in Victoria’s mountain ash forests is increasing the risk of catastrophic wildfires. The cycling of logging and wildfire is creating a landscape trap where the wet forest ecosystem is being permanently converted to a new landscape replaced by other species, particularly wattle, increasing the frequency and intensity of bushfire risk.

"These changes will significantly impair ecological functions like carbon storage, water production and biodiversity conservation," said Professor Lindenmayer. "This is historically unprecedented and is beginning to dominate the mountain ash landscapes we see today."

Forests play a major role as carbon sink say scientists

The world's forests remove over one quarter of current annual human carbon emissions from the atmosphere each year, the equivalent of about 2.4 billion tonnes of carbon according to the latest published scientific research. An international team of scientists, including from the US Forests Service and the Australian CSIRO, have quantified the greenhouse gas carbon sink provided by the world's tropical, temperate and boreal forests.

"This is really a timely breakthrough with which we can now clearly demonstrate how forests and changes in landscape such as wildfire or forest regrowth impact the removal or release of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2)," says Dr Pep Canadell, CSIRO co-author of the paper: A Large and Persistent Carbon Sink in the World's Forests. "What this research tells us is that forests play a much larger role as carbon sinks as a result of tree growth and forest expansion."