By Obiabin Onukwugha
Australia’s forestry industry have released plans to remove trees from native forests, potentially including national parks, and claim carbon credits in the process.
Forestry Australia, the industry body behind the plan, claims it would make ecosystems more resilient and help tackle climate change.
The proposal also involves “forest thinning”, or removing trees. In a statement to The Conversation, Forestry Australia’s acting president William Jackson said thinning involves “selectively reducing the number of trees to enable the healthy trees to grow”.
Announcing Forestry Australia’s proposal, its president Michelle Freeman said forests were “more resilient if they are actively managed”.
Under a federal government scheme, people and businesses can undertake projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions or store carbon, in exchange for financial rewards known as carbon credits.
Projects can include changing the way vegetation is managed, so it removes and stores more carbon from the atmosphere.
The government has invited proposals for new ways to generate carbon credits under the policy.
Forestry Australia’s proposal involves a number of activities conducted in national parks, state forests and on private land. In return for conducting these activities, land managers – such as government agencies and private landowners – would be granted carbon credits.
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But researchers have clearly suggested that the proposal, if accepted, will have the opposite effect.
Scientific evidence shows that the proposed practices makes forests more fire-prone and undermine forest health. It was also stated that the carbon released when cutting down and processing trees would undermine any climate benefits of the plan.
Stakeholders have posited that Australia cannot risk any more declines in biodiversity resulting from harvesting native forests, or actions that further threaten its emissions-reduction goal.
Several adaptive harvesting practices are scientifically shown to harm native forests. Reports have it that analyses following the 2009 wildfires and after the 2019-2020 wildfires show thinning generally makes forests more fire-prone.
Foresters stated that the heavy equipment used to log forests disturbs and degrades soil and the understorey.
Forestry Australia’s proposal is problematic if Australia hopes to achieve its emissions-reduction target of 43% by 2030, based on 2005 levels.
First, logging releases carbon stored in trees and soil. So, even if some carbon was stored under the plan, through activities such as regeneration this would be undermined by carbon released when removing trees.
Second, there is a risk carbon credits may be granted for activities and emission reductions that would have happened anyway.
It was learnt that many First Nations communities in Australia have been directly impacted by deforestation, their traditional lands turned into ‘sick’ or ‘upside down’ country and its almost always done without the free prior and informed consent of First Peoples.
