At Senate estimate hearings on Monday Senator Janet Rice, the Greens spokesperson for forests, asked a number of probing questions on Regional Forest Agreements. One question in particular asked about how climate change science was included in the review of these agreements. The bureaucrats looked like stunned mullets, until one volunteered that the question would have to be taken on notice.
Really? They haven't considered some sort of cost benefit analysis of carbon sequestration? Not even as an opportunity to bid under the Emmissions Reduction Fund for the carbon sequestration potential involved in protection of old growth forests?
Senator RICE: I have one more question on climate, particularly on how climate science has progressed significantly in the years since the first RFAs were struck and climate has not been considered in the reviews so far. I want to know how it is intended that the impacts of climate change and the value of forests for carbon sequestration are going to be taken into account in the review and progress reports to come.
Mr McNamara: We will have to take the question on notice.
How did you celebrate National Tree Day - 28 July? I finally found the time to drive up from Melbourne to the mountain ash forests of the Central Highlands at Sylvia Creek Road near Toolangi, to walk among giants.
The occasion was the opening of a new short track - The Kalatha Giant Tree Walk. There are still some mature Mountain Ash standing as silent sentinels. The Kalatha tree is estimated to be about 400 years old. Somehow it was missed in previous logging of the area, although a smaller tree near the start of the track provides evidence for early logging in the area.
It was quite a crowd that gathered at Tanglefoot Car Park picnic spot on Sylvia Creek Road. Many people brought hampers but there was also plenty of hot soup, juice and tea supplied by local people. My Environment, and Friends of Leadbeater's Possum were there, as well as CFA and DSE and councillors from Yarra Ranges and Murrindindi Councils.
Friends of Leadbeater's Possum had 'George' on display. George is a stuffed male Leadbeater's possum found intact on the side of a logging road about two years ago. It is assumed that George's home was a victim of logging, and as his home was being carted away he fell off the logging truck. Now he is truly stuffed. And his species isn't doing much better.
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)
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)
The Queensland Premier and Government have reopened logging in native forests with 2 million hectares of state forest being made initially available for environmental destruction. This will impact on habitat for endangered species, biodiversity and the huge carbon stores locked up in mature forests. Mature forests also tend to hold more moisture and are less susceptible to bushfire, and absorb more water during floods - providing a natural flood mitigation service, a natural service that is all the more needed with the increase in rainfall and extreme whether events with climate change. See Leaked Document (PDF).
As Australia gears up for another risky bushfire season this summer, some of its most iconic and valuable forests are at risk.
Giant eucalpytus trees rely on fire to regenerate, but an increase in major bush fires due to climate change could stunt their growth, a Tasmanian ecologist has warned.
The Unviersity of Tasmania’s Professor David Bowman says giant gum trees – which can act as valuable carbon stores – may become a thing of the past.
Giant gum trees can grow up to 100 metres, and are hundreds of years old.
“They are a globally unique rainforest tree that recovers from bushfires with explosive growth to out-compete the other rainforest trees,” Bowman said.
Global warming is likely to accelerate release of forest soil carbon say researchers. This is another climate feedback loop. Rising temperatures are likely to accelerate forest soil carbon decomposition leading to more CO2 released into the atmosphere, compounding global warming. Rather than these forests acting as a carbon sink, warmer temperatures may make them a major source of greenhouse gas emissions further contributing to global warming warn the researchers.
"Our results suggest that large stores of carbon that built up over the last century as forests recovered will erode with rising temperatures," said Susan Trumbore of the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry and University of California at Irvine (UCI), who led the research team.
Climate change induced drought and water stress is increasing tree mortality in Canada's boreal forests, particularly in western Canada, resulting in a reduction in biomass which reduces it's capacity as a carbon sink. As tree mortality increases, there is reduced capacity to absorb carbon dioxide, resulting in a feedback loop where conditions become warmer and drier increasing the stress on the boreal forest ecosystem and ability to absorb carbon dioxide that humans keep on pumping into the atmosphere at increasing rates.
The climate is changing in Canada. New research indicates that large areas of Canada are approaching a threshold value where they may experience a rapid increase in the size of wildfires. Both the area burnt down annually and the average size of the fires would increase, write the researchers of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) and the University of Michigan who undertook the research.
Wildfire is expected to increase as a result of climate change in Canada with the majority of wildfires occurring in non-fragmented coniferous forests. Recovery from fire usually takes 20 years. If fires or logging occurrs on a frequent basis, this can cause landscape traps in which the ecology becomes permanently changed. (See example: mountain ash forest landscape trap of Victoria, Australia)
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).
An interesting seminar was held at the Australian National University on November 10, 2011 on logging of native forests and the timeframe for dealing with CO2 emissions for climate policy. The seminar was given by Dr Judith Ajani, an economist at the ANU Fenner School of Environment and Society and the author of The Forest Wars (MUP 2007). She examines both sides of the debate regarding logging of native forests and whether native forests should be used for bioenergy or biodiversity.
Environmental activists have been out in old growth Forests in East Gippsland this week attempting to stop more rape of our natural environment and protecting important refugia habitats for endangered species. Logging operations on Survey Rd on the Errinundra Plateau were halted by a tree-sit attached to five logging machines and suspended 40 metres up in the tree canopy.
"In the face of recent Baillieu government moves to weaken the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act, conservationists have again taken their message to logging sites where important wildlife habitat continues to be logged for woodchips", said Ms Amelia Young, spokesperson for the conservationists of the Goongerah Environment Centre (GECO) (Facebook).
As Australia's climate warms up we are facing increased bush fire risk. Old growth forests trap moisture and provide an important bulwark against bushfires, while previously logged forest regrowth with trees of the same maturity will tend to burn at a much higher intensity.
Chris Taylor from Beyond Zero Emissions and Melbourne University has done an extensive bushfire data analysis that proves intact native forests mitigated the 2009 Victorian bushfires. He was speaking at the Australian Forests and Climate Forum 2011 held in August
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."
Caption: Comparison of absolute forest area and deforestation rate trends for peat swamp forest (top) and all forest in Sarawak including peat swamp forest (bottom) during 2005-2010. (Sarvision 2011)
A report by Wetlands International in February reported on the Borneo Orangutan Survival website reports "Two thirds of Sarawak's peatlands were until recently covered by thick, biodiversity-rich rainforest. Between 2005-2010 almost 353,000 hectare of the one million hectare peatswamp forests were opened up at high speed; largely for palm oil production. In just 5 years time, almost 10% of all Sarawak's forests and 33% of the peatswamp forests have been cleared. Of this, 65% was for conversion to palm oil production. (2011; Sarvision, Impact of oil palm plantations on peatland conversion in Sarawak 2005-2010.)
Marcel Silvius from Wetlands International said: "As the timber resource has been depleted the timber companies are now engaging in the oil palm business, completing the annihilation of Sarawak's peat swamp forests."
Conservationists have today participated in a protest on Hobart's wharf, where a vessel is being loaded for the Malaysian logging company Ta Ann. The protest highlights the ongoing loss of high conservation value temperate forests in Tasmania and the rapacious logging of tropical rainforests of Borneo and destructon of habitat for Orangutan and dispossession of the indigenous Penan people from their ancestral forests and lands.
"Four conservationists have attached themselves to the vessel, we are participating in today's non violent protest to highlight the ongoing loss of high conservation value forests," Huon Valley Environment Centre's Jenny Weber said.
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."
A new scientific study published in Nature Geoscience says that major afforestation will have little impact on slowing global warming and that "afforestation is not a substitute for reduced greenhouse-gas emissions".
A new report from some of the world's top experts on forest governance has criticised various international climate change accords including REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) and REDD+ for their narrow focus on carbon storage which has failed to stop rampant destruction of the world's most vulnerable forests and often acted to further marginalise indigenous peoples.
Conservation groups on the South Coast of New South Wales have called on the Keneally NSW Government to immediately reject a proposal for a Wood Fired biomass Power Station, nick named by them as 'Dead Koala Power', at the infamous Eden Woodchip Mill. South East Fibre Exports, a Japanese owned company, plans to use chipmill timber waste to generate electricity in a 5.5 megawatt $20million plant. The power station would be an environmental disaster for native forests and a climate disaster with greater CO2 pollution than coal fired power. Public submissions online on the assessment for the biomass power station can be made until April 22.
Biomass power stations are classified as low carbon renewable energy, as they generally burn biological waste byproducts to generate electricity. The Eden woodchip mill announced plans to build a new power station fuelled by wood waste from logging native forests in November 2008. The mill's owner proposed to market the power station as both renewable and low carbon, even though over 70 per cent of the biomass would be from native forests. Waste that is now primarily recycled as garden mulch for gardens in Melbourne and Sydney.
NSW Greens MP John Kaye pointed out in December 2008 that "Forestry biomass is at least four times worse than burning coal. Forestry biomass will not be economic, sustainable or low carbon." Dr Kaye outlined the myths being pedaled about the proposed biomass power station:
The native forest destroyers rely on multiple layers of propaganda, each of which is more outrageous than the previous. The first is the idea that the furnace will be fuelled by mill wastes. The concept of wastes conjures up safe images of that which would have no other uses and would be discarded. Nothing could be further from the truth. Economic forces will inevitably drag woodchips into the furnace of the power station once the plant is built, as the export price for woodchips plummets and the unit wholesale price of electricity rises dramatically. Just as whole logs are currently declared waste and hence fed into the chippers at Eden, so too will woodchips be declared appropriate fuel for the power station. No matter what prohibitions are contained in the conditions of consent, regardless of the promises made by the State and Federal governments, and irrespective of undertakings by South East Fibre Exports, the economic inevitability is the forests of south-east New South Wales being fed into furnaces to generate electricity.
The second myth is that forest biomass is an economic source of power. The massive subsidies paid by the New South Wales Government to the chip-mill owners deliver wood at less than one half of its economic value. The forest furnaces will be able to out-compete other cheaper sources of power that do not enjoy the same subsidies, including wind and solar thermal power.
The third myth is the idea that native forest biomass power generation could be declared renewable and qualify to produce certificates under national and State targets. The exploitation of the south-east, the steady conversion of native forest into managed plantations and the devastation of native species and biodiversity are the antithesis of sustainability. An industry that destroys priceless native forests could never be called renewable by any but apologists for the multinational profit takers.
The fourth myth is that the electricity from native forest biomass is low carbon emitting. The theory is deceptively simple. The CO2 emitted from the burning of the wood will be reabsorbed by tree regrowth and in this perfect world there is little or no net release of carbon. Proponents refer to it as solar energy, where photosynthesis stores the energy of the sun as chemical energy.
Forests NSW has been disgracefully negligent in its data collection on carbon storage and release in its forests. Recent work by Professor Brendan Mackey and his team at the Australian National University casts doubt on current carbon accounting practices. Our very rough analysis, based on forestry industry and peer-reviewed data, suggests that for every megawatt hour of energy generated by south-east native forestry biomass, more than 6.4 tonnes of CO2 would be released instantaneously. This is more than 6.4 times the amount of CO2 released from burning coal to produce the same amount of energy. Certainly regrowth would bio-sequester some of this carbon but at a very slow rate. It would take about 80 years of regrowth to capture 5.4 tonnes, thus returning the greenhouse gas emissions to the same level as coal.
However, the forests are harvested on a much shorter cycle. After 20 years, the forests would have captured only two tonnes, leaving more than four tonnes in the atmosphere. Forestry biomass is at least four times worse than burning coal. Forestry biomass will not be economic, sustainable or low carbon.
"Consideration of this proposal by the ALP Government breaks its promise given under Bob Carr that native forests would never be used for power generation", claimed Noel Plumb of anti woodchip group ChipBusters. " A promise given after public outrage at such proposals."
"The woodchip industry is seeking to create a massive new market for woodchips through burning the forests for electricity production, on top of export woodchips for paper production. It is known to the electricity industry as 'dead koala power' and leading industry players are shy of it, the public won't buy it." said Noel Plumb, "It is a disgraceful proposal that will ensure not only the extinction of the last koala colony in the South East Forests, in Mumbulla SF, but also lead to the extinction of other endangered wildlife in the forests, including owls, bats, parrots, gliders and potaroos."
Potential consequences for Climate
The proposal has been criticised by Victorian climate and hydrology researcher and consultant, Aron Gingis, who said that the plant will have an adverse affect on air quality which will cause a decline in rainfall, affecting river flows and leading to an increased bushfire risk due to dry conditions. He told the ABC that the project will have devastating consequences for the Snowy River. "The area of the catchment of the Snowy River will get basically nil rainfall and snowfall," he said. "In last September you had a bit of snow in the area, about 30 or 40cm in some areas. If they had that biomass power plant operational, clouds would simply not precipitate in South East slopes at all." he said.
Harriet Swift of local forest conservation group CHIPSTOP said "The industry describes woodchips as waste wood from logging operations but it's a sham. An average of 90% of all trees felled in South East NSW and East Gippsland VIC forests go straight to the chipmill. We are facing approval by the Government to this monstrous proposal in less than 3 weeks. The Planning Minister has called it a state significant infrastructure development and is set to approve it under the infamous Part 3A powers that effectively override the Environment Planning and Assessment Act."
A similar proposal under Bob Carr as Premier to burn forests as charcoal for silicon production was defeated. "Australians have the common sense to know that this is a dirty deal - 'dead koala power'," said Prue Acton OBE of the South East Regional Conservation Alliance. "The proposed power station is not clean, it is not green and it is not going to happen. Conservationists have been battling to save the last koala colony in the South East Forests from woodchipping for paper pulp. The Eden Chipmill Power Station must not be allowed to kill off the koalas or any other forest animals. Its time to call a halt to all woodchipping of our forests."
"The NSW Government seems actually to want another running brawl on such a losing issue, all the way to the next election. It will certainly get a brawl if Premier Keneally does not step in to put a quick stop to this menace and, in so doing, restore some confidence in its environmental promises." said Ms Acton.
Public submissions on the assessment for the biomass power station can be made until April 22 at the NSW Government Planning Major Assessments. Submissions can be made online. Prue Acton asks why green carbon is being ignored by the government
Takver is a citizen journalist from Melbourne who has been writing on Climate Change issues and protests including Rising Sea Level, Ocean acidification, Environmental and social Impacts since 2004.
Conservation groups on the South Coast of New South Wales have called on the Keneally NSW Government to immediately reject a proposal for a Wood Fired biomass Power Station, nick named by them as 'Dead Koala Power', at the infamous Eden Woodchip Mill. South East Fibre Exports, a Japanese owned company, plans to use chipmill timber waste to generate electricity in a 5.5 megawatt $20million plant. The power station would be an environmental disaster for native forests and a climate disaster with greater CO2 pollution than coal fired power.