Carbon knowledge boost for Forestry Tasmania

Dr Hans Drielsma
Executive General Manager
Acting Managing Director

FORESTRY Tasmania’s understanding of carbon cycles has been boosted with the appointment of carbon expert Martin Moroni who has returned to the state after 10 years in Canada.

Dr Moroni has been appointed as research scientist in forest carbon with the Division of Forestry Research and Development. (DFRD)

In Canada Dr Moroni worked with the Canadian Forest Service in Newfoundland and Labrador and is an adjunct professor at the Memorial University of Newfoundland.

Dr Moroni is a leading authority on carbon measurement in native forests and plantations as well as on carbon exchange between forests and the atmosphere. He has worked in the area of terrestrial carbon cycles and the effects of climate change on forest management.

Dr Moroni believes forests have a role to play in offsetting carbon increases but says recent research suggests in Canada forests are transitioning from a carbon sink to a carbon source.

Dr Moroni stresses the importance of having a balance between both managed and unmanaged forests, managing forests for a range of values including carbon, and maintaining forests with a range of age classes to support a full variety of forest values including different species.

He advocates removing some trees from forests for products that store carbon, and says using wood products to replace high carbon emitters such as steel and concrete has increased benefits. He also says wood is a renewable and far more environmentally friendly energy source than oil.

Dr Moroni graduated with a bachelor of agricultural science and a PhD from the University of Tasmania, specialising in forestry, soil and nutrient cycles. He worked as a research assistant with CRC Forestry in Tasmania then at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. His work with the Canadian Forest Service in Newfoundland and Labrador focused on climate change and the carbon cycle. He developed research programs to investigate gaps in data relating to forest carbon cycles and researched and tested the validity of Canada’s carbon budget model. As part of his work Dr Moroni measured forest carbon stocks after thinning and harvesting, and fire and insect damage. He also looked at the effects of harvesting on dead trees in relation to carbon storage and habitat.

In his new role as research scientist in forest carbon with Forestry Tasmania Dr Moroni will look at different aspects of forestry to better understand the forest carbon cycle in the Tasmanian ecological and political context.

In partnership with other relevant organisations he aims to improve confidence in estimates of forest carbon and address data gaps in our understanding of the forest carbon cycles.