Tasmanian forests – a massive contributor to the fight against climate change

Tasmania’s state forests are sucking carbon from the atmosphere at the rate of around 700 thousand tonnes per year, thanks to Forestry Tasmania’s management strategies.

A report commissioned by Forestry Tasmania has exploded the myth that forestry is contributing to greenhouse warming.

By 2050, the amount will increase by some 31 million tonnes to 357 million tonnes.

Each year, Tasmania’s forests are absorbing 24% of the entire state’s carbon emissions.

The international community is increasingly concerned about the complex effects that carbon dioxide emissions from human activities are creating on our planet, such as changes in temperature, rainfall, sea levels and ocean currents. According to the Bureau of Meteorology, Australia has been experiencing steadily rising average temperatures and changes in rainfall patterns since the middle of the last century. The potential flow-on effects of these changes to natural ecosystems and human communities are not yet fully understood.

Our forest management practices are helping the planet. Whenever an area of state forest is harvested, it is re-grown using techniques that mimic nature.

In time native forest harvesting will come to be regarded as the ultimate in sustainability and its products will achieve eco premium prices.

Wood products also have the added advantages of being renewable and requiring less energy to produce. Even wood and paper products in landfill have been shown to store carbon for long periods of time, and wood residues used for biomass energy also help to displace energy that would have been sourced from non-renewable fossil fuels. If product life cycle assumptions are included, Forestry Tasmania's forests store additional carbon, estimated by MBAC Consulting to be around 7 million tonnes in 2006 (post-1990 products) rising to around 10 million tonnes by 2050.

Links:
Climate change: threat or opportunity? (Article from FT’s Branchline magazine, June 2007).
MBAC Report - Forestry Tasmania’s Carbon Sequestration Position, December 2007
Forests, Wood and Australia’s Carbon Balance.