Native Forestry’s role in carbon solution highlighted again

A report released today by the Australian National University (ANU) has found that Native Forests are storing more carbon than previously thought. This is good news according to Tasmania’s public forest manager – Forestry Tasmania.

Assistant General Manager Michael Wood said, “all forests harvested by Forestry Tasmania are regenerated with the same type of forest that continues to store carbon as it grows. Future forests managed by Forestry Tasmania will have more carbon stored than today’s forests.

“Therefore the carbon stored in our forests is a permanent store into the future – if this store is larger than previously thought, that is great news.

“Forestry Tasmania manages its forests for conservation, tourism, wood production and carbon storage.

“We have an important role to play as forest managers in the solution to climate change. We must maintain forest carbon stores into the future, produce additional carbon stores in forest products and help reduce the reliance on carbon intensive products like concrete, steel and aluminium.”

“We will be interested to read the ANU report in more detail when the methodology of the report is released. The methodology is crucial, so we cannot comment in detail at this stage.

“It is vital that any reporting of carbon storage in a native forest estate studies a large sample of the ecosystem as a whole over a long period of time. The carbon stored in a forest estate will always fluctuate as fire, wind, harvesting and other factors impact on the landscape.

“Forestry Tasmania’s research on our carbon stores, published in December 2007, is based on more than 3000 plots that Forestry Tasmania measures and analyses on a regular basis.

“Our data shows that carbon stored in Tasmania’s state forests will increase from 156 to 187 million tonnes over the period to 2050, representing an annual storage of 2.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.

“The recent Green Paper lists 115 sectors of the Australian economy according to their net impact on carbon emissions. Of the 115 sectors there is only one sector that has a net positive impact on carbon emissions – Forestry and Logging.

“Forestry Tasmania’s forests are part of the solution to climate change and are already doing more than any other sector of the Australian economy to reduce carbon emissions.”

ENDS

August 5, 2008

Information:

Claire Bennett
Senior Communications Consultant
Corporate Relations and Tourism
Ph: (03) 6233 8249