Forests - the major player in climate calming
Protecting forests and reforestation could account for 31% of government greenhouse targets set for 2020 according to a report from global heavyweight business consultants McKinsey and Company.
The
McKinsey Report found that Australia could cut emissions to 30% less
than 1990 levels by 2020, at a cost of only $5.60 a week per household.
This would not cause major upsets to business or the community. McKinsey's
analysis also found that greenhouse cuts of up to 60% are possible by
2030 using forest protection, reafforestation and more efficient use
of energy. These three things would spearhead deep cuts in Australia's
greenhouse emissions by 2020.
Avoiding land clearing and logging, coupled with rapid, widespread tree-planting programs, can provide one of the cheapest ways for Australia to offset its greenhouse emissions. The report's author, Stephan Gorner, said that compared with most other developed economies, Australia was in a good position to develop large-scale forest sinks as a cheap way to make quick cuts in emissions. He said that without forestry and the big gains available by replacing coal with clean energy, Australia would find it much more difficult to achieve the deep targets proposed. These solutions don't need fancy technologies; they are simple and right in front of us now. All that's needed is for our governments to think independently from the coal, oil and logging industries and then show some strong political will.
Jill/The Age 8.2.08 / McKinnsey Report / Herald Sun 31.1.08
Write, call or email ...
State politicians - at Parliament House Spring St Melbourne, 3000 or the Federal politicians at Parliament House Canberra ACT, 2600.
Also please write letters to the major papers or your local regional newspapers - or both. But remember to send them off separately; they don't like to think your letter has also gone to five other places as well. The major papers like issues that are on the boil, letters that are short and sweet, humorous or thoughts that are cleverly put. Include your address and daytime phone number so they can make sure you're a real person.
Even easier - ring up talkback shows and tell it like it is - express some emotion or personal thoughts rather than just facts and figures.
The government is always looking to letters and talkback to monitor the mood of the public.
Letters to the Editor ...
The Herald
Sun - hseditor@hwt.newsltd.com.au
The Age - letters@theage.fairfax.com.au
MX magazine - talk@mxnet.com.au
The Australian - letters@theaustralian.com.au
The Canberra Times - letters.editor@canberratimes.com.au
The Sydney Morning Herald - letters@smh.com.au
The West Australian - letters@wanews.com.au
Hobart Mercury - mercuryedletter@dbl.newsltd.com.au
JOHN
BRUMBY
the two faces
When he was leader of the opposition in 1995, Mr Brumby made this statement in Parliament:
"In my remaining 16 minutes I will make a case for why we need an independent commissioner for the environment to ensure that governments honour policy commitments that they have made with other governments. There is no better example of that than in forestry where there have been flagrant abuses of commonwealth and state processes, where there has been an open-slather approach, where the minister's department is run recklessly and irresponsibly and allows forest practices to occur which clearly breach accepted codes."
In 1995, John Brumby was the leader of the Victorian Labor party, then in opposition. In a video clip from 1995 we see John Brumby speak with passion declaring that, if elected, a Labor government would end all logging in High Conservation Value old-growth forests, end all export wood chipping in Victoria and move the logging industry completely out of old-growth forests and into plantations.
"... that's what we'll do when we're in government - no more export woodchipping, an industry in the future based on plantations and the proper protection of our high conservation value forests".
In 2006, the ALP promised to
"Immediately protect Goolengook and the last significant stands of Victoria's old growth forests currently available for logging ... a 5,000 ha section of State Forests currently available for logging to link the Errinundra National Park to the Snowy National Park ... add 2,500 ha of icon State Forest in East Gippsland currently available for logging ..." (Policy for the 2006 Victorian Election).
These are a good start - but forestry interests slashed to billio what was originally on the map for protection. What is claimed to be the last significant stands of old growth are either not old growth at all or are a mere sample of what's desperately needing protection. What is claimed to have been 'currently available for logging' was quite often not wanted by the loggers, already logged or already in reserves. So if Brumby is genuine about the 33,500 ha of significant old growth, then he must add a lot more to the map yet.
Protected forests - now you see them ...
The Brumby government is playing the walnut and pea trick with our reserves. After protection was offered to some areas of old growth in the lead up to the '06 state elections, our government might now be offering other reserves as a trade off for their protection.
We wrote to the Environment Minister Jennings, asking for clarification on how they intended to meet their promise to both protect the areas identified (though not all of it was old growth, controversial or even available for logging) and maintain the same volume of logs to the industry.
We asked for assurances that they weren't considering an exchange of currently protected forests in Special Protection Zones for the newly identified areas. "Freeing up" or clearfelling SPZs would keep the rate of logging at a steady pace, but it wouldn't offer any net gain for the conservation of old growth forests.
The response avoided any mention of SPZs. The letter did say that the RFA is still a significant part of what informs the region's forest management and protection.
A major part of that agreement dated 3rd February 1997 says:
"The RFA promotes the transparency and accountability of forest management with: five yearly reviews with public input to monitor progress under the RFA; ..."
We're still waiting for the reviews 11 years on, let alone sustainability indicators, threatened species monitoring and other promises.
Forests are now an accepted antidote to tackle climate chaos. They are water, soil and soul nurturers. Now is the time for this government to bite the bullet, get rid of the plundering pulpwood monster, tell Michael O'Connor to go to hell, and do a serious overhaul of the management and use of our native forests.
Jill
CLIMATE CHANGE AND FORESTS
Bali Charley!
Bali still dawdles on forests
Last December's two-week long meeting of the UN Climate Conference in Bali made a commitment to include emissions from forests as part of the Kyoto Protocol.
But for the next four years, there can only be $ rewards in storing carbon in regrowth forest, not forest protection. Think about that! Yes - rewarded for cutting them down to grow again! That's despite worldwide acceptance that clearing forests accounts for 20% of the planet's human-made greenhouse emissions. This doesn't include the impact of logging and regrowth, which reduces the carbon stocks in mature forests by about 40%.
Throwing "avoided deforestation" into the mix after 2012 could meanwhile see a global acceleration of logging; a chainsaw frenzy like never before. We saw this sort of frenzy in Queensland some years back when news eked out that the government was going to introduce limits on clearing.
When the Kyoto Protocol was drawn up, forest destruction was missing from the calculations because vested interests were arguing about its impacts or how to measure the carbon loss. Now there is no argument.
But how does a global system actually watch and regulate deforestation? Despite some countries' best efforts, much illegal logging continues - and even occurs in National Parks. In cases where best intentions are absent and the ruling authority is in bed with the forest pillagers, how would this be reliably enforced or monitored?
With the increasing demand for palm oil offering extremely high returns on investment costs, clearing forests would be more economical than being paid to protect them. And if they were protected, who would be paid? The government and its officials or the local people? Sadly - while these bumps are ironed out, the earth's forest mantel is disappearing daily. The one thing to look forward to though is that our own governments will soon be forced to recognise the massive carbon pollution from our own logging and put a decent price on it or just stop it altogether.
CO2 soaks and storage machines
The natural diversity of unlogged forests makes them very robust. This healthy resilience is extremely valuable at a time when climate disturbance is impacting more harshly on disturbed environments. But besides being sturdy arks and biological refuges, forests are one of the worlds best carbon capture vessels.
While the world authorities try to work out a method for dealing with forest loss in developing countries, we in the developed countries like Australia, the US and Canada should be urgently setting up a scheme to protect the green carbon in natural forests.
Jill / The Economist 19.12.07
Snags, chops & forest
Animal factory farms have allowed a huge increase in global meat eating in recent years.
Assembly-line animal factories use enormous amounts of energy, pollute water supplies, generate greenhouse gases and use mega tonnes of feed grains, which has meant destruction of vast swathes of the world's tropical rainforests to grow them.
Today, we eat twice the amount of meat we ate 45 years ago. In 1961, the world ate 71 million tonnes of animal flesh. In 2007, it was estimated to be 284 million tonnes. Meat production is expected to double again by 2050.
About a third of the earth's ice-free land is directly or indirectly involved in livestock production, according to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation. It also estimates that meat production makes nearly a fifth of the world's greenhouse gases - more than transportation.
A study last year by the National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science in Japan estimated that producing one kilogram of beef emits the same amount of CO2 as an average car travelling 250 km.
Mark Bittman, New York via The Age, 4.2.08
Australia
- world leaders in bovine poo
Check out these two statements on measuring carbon in forests. The first is from a recent draft Federal Government policy paper saying that we can't measure forest carbon properly yet, so we'll just ignore it in the overall carbon tally for Australia. The second is from a Federal Government media release saying that Australia is so far advanced in measuring forest carbon that we'll help the rest of the world.
This makes you want to take them by the neck and shake them violently!
"Reporting methodologies are not yet sufficiently developed for wide-scale measurement of agriculture and land use, land use change and forestry emissions at the facility and corporate levels. ... until development of improved methodologies, the legislative instrument for methodologies will specify that emissions from ... forestry will be considered zero for the purposes of thresholds and reporting under the Act. Following development of improved methodologies for estimating emissions in these areas, further consideration will be given to reporting and threshold issues".
National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting System Regulations Policy Paper - public comments closed in late February '08.
"Senator Penny Wong has announced a new partnership with the Clinton Climate Initiative to develop a global carbon monitoring system that can assist in recognising sustainable forest management and reforestation within global carbon markets ... While Australia is a trail-blazer in modern forest carbon measurement systems, a global application of this kind requires an international partnership to harness world wide capabilities".
Govt Media release 18/2/08 Jill
GARNAUT REPORT acknowledges forests
Penny Wong's cool response to the Garnaut report could have something to do with her past, which includes working in the Forestry Section of the CFMEU and as an advisor on forests to the NSW government (see article POPULATION - the taboo topic).
The Garnaut report is gutsier than we were expecting, but forests still only rate a very small mention. In the 63 page report, the few mentions of forests are mostly in relation to PNG and Indonesia.
Of 19 instances of the word "forest" or "forestry" in the interim Garnaut report, only one relates to Australia. This may not look very encouraging, but at least the potential to reduce carbon emissions through "changes in ... forest management" has been recognised. On page 47 it says:
"...some areas that are considered difficult like forestry, are to be included from the beginning (YES!) and others like agriculture, are to be included later, to allow time to develop ways to include them." and
"...there is considerable potential for sequestering large amounts of carbon through changes in land and forest management and agricultural practices. It is important to realise that incentives to realise this potential are in place as early as possible in the life of the ETS (Emissions Trading Scheme). Full inclusion of agriculture and forestry could require consideration of measures available to other trade-exposed, emissions-intensive industries."
This
must be frightening to the logging industry. Just watch - there'll
be a flurry of news stories, reports and conferences all designed
by the industry to try and convince us that logging is performing
a social and environmental service to help climate change.
Harriett /Jill
RUDD - Coal captured
Kevin Rudd made no commitment to greenhouse gas targets at the Bali Conference. Instead he said he'd wait until his chosen economist, Prof Ross Garnaut, produced a report in umpteen months' time. He needed to see what impact saving the world might have on our business and the economy. In late February, we were pleasantly surprised by Prof. Garnaut's first report on climate impacts and the economy. It suggested that the government takes it a bit more seriously and increases their targets for CO2 cutbacks to 90% by 2050. He has said this would not cause any major hardships. However, Penny Wong, Minister for Climate Change, is downplaying his recommendation. She'll also ask Treasury for economic advice and intends to stick to their original election target of 60% by 2050. (Even Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are promising 80% cuts by 2050). The government plans to bring in an emissions trading scheme by 2010, but Garnaut suggested setting carbon reduction targets this year.
What they really need are major and immediate year-by-year targets. In political timelines, 12 years is as good as never.
Bob Brown said the Rudd Government was back-peddling and 'coal captured'. He said there are huge vested interests at play here - the coal industry, the aluminium industry, the logging industry - and it's up to Rudd to put the country ahead of vested interests. He said a good first step would be slashing the $9 billion in subsidies the fossil fuel industries receive annually, instead of slashing public service jobs.
The final Garnaut report is still six months away and Senator Christine Milne said that the government should be making plans now for this report to be part of a climate-focused budget in May.
Jill / AAP - 21.2.08
Forests and water
Mountains support 28% of the world's forests and these forests are the source of some 60-80% of the world's fresh water resources. They are also natural barriers for landslides, torrents and floods. Tropical Montane Cloud Forests are being lost faster than any other major forest ecosystem (they have unique hydrological values and biodiversity). However, about 1/3 of the world's major watersheds have lost more than 3/4 of their original forest cover. The logging of Gippsland's mountain forests is helping increase this atrocious figure.
Encyclopaedia of Earth
www.eoearth.org:80/article/Forests_environmental-services
Garrett digs to greater depths
If anyone had a flicker of optimism left that Peter Garrett might start to show some tiny verdant streak - even under his armpit or hidden deep behind his kidneys - sometime soon - then anticipate no more. We're all wasting our hopefulness.
He's approved the Gunns pulpmill and now the dredging of the beautiful Port Phillip Bay and even the massive fire-breaks through some of the most lush forests in Gippsland. He's justified them all with the classic language of developers.
He didn't say they would protect the underwater world of corals and sea grass, fish and dolphins in Port Phillip Bay. No. He said he would protect the port's '$68 billion dollars worth of annual trade'. Is this a Minister for the Environment that favours a Port's ever growing profits above the ecology of a very special bay?
Jill / Sue Pennicuik / ABC News online 20.12.07
Blazing trails and forests
After the state government was caught out during and after the '06 fires, thumbing its nose at its own planning regulations let alone Federal laws, these careless cowboys have now changed the laws to allow them to continue!
Over 200 km of these lineal logging coupes were bulldozed through the heart of many intact and important wet forests, including National Parks. Even people within DSE and the CFA shook their heads in disbelief and questioned whether these 'breaks' were effective in fire fighting. In fact, many saw them as counter productive, drying out wet forests and creating wind tunnels.
In early February, Environment Minister, Gavin Jennings, announced that there will be hundreds more kilometres of so called 'fuel breaks' gouged from the forested landscapes of Victoria. No doubt this was approved after some added lobbying from logging and woodchipping interests. The wind tunnels can be up to 40 metres wide and are planned for forests in the Otway Ranges, Gippsland, Ballarat, Bendigo and the Mallee. Minister Jennings claims these scars will be constructed in an 'environmentally sensitive' manner. Like a farmer cuts the skin off a sheep's bottom in a sensitive manner? Gaps in the forest won't stop mega fires but some decent water bombers might.
Changes to the Victoria Planning Provisions was pushed through to make these huge swathes legal. The government is supposed to offset permanent losses in vegetation cover by protecting other areas of equal value. We're not sure if those forests already cleared will be offset.
Because there are seven nationally endangered species living where the fire breaks have been cut, and are planned to be cut, the Federal Government are also part of the approvals process. It's no surprise that Environment Minister, Peter Garrett gave the nod. So instead of looking at each area on a case by case basis, the Feds have OK'd the lot - just as long as DSE bulldozes these breaks oh so carefully where they know there are endangered species.
EPBC decision 2007-3897 / DSE media release - 5.2.08 / Jill
psssst - the latest news is that the state has solved the problem of isolating populations of species like the endangered Leadbeaters Possum - by stringing up ropes across the fire breaks for them to cross on. For how many hundred kilometres? I hope the government will also be providing air raid shelters along those ropes so the little tackers can escape the owls picking them off.
These DSE bureaucrats should be employed writing sketches for Monty Python.
Jill
The fire economy
By May 2004, the Victorian Government had funded the clearfelling of forests burnt in the 2003 fires to the tune of $6.9 million. Another $4 million was given to help the woodchip industry continue its access the following year. Then in 2007 we taxpayers gave at least $868,000 to help the industry clearfell the 2006 fire-damaged forests.
From the 2004-05 and 2006-07 Victorian Budgets.
1080
During 2005-06, 693 wild dogs and dingoes were trapped and killed in leg hold traps. Almost 6,000 baits were laid - and only 24 kms of dog proof fencing was erected.
DSE media release 27.10.06
Women who were weaned on woodchips
There have traditionally been very few women in the halls of power, influence and industry. To fit into the blokey power culture some have had to be as tough as. Many started out spruiking for the logging industry or had close associations with logging heavyweights like Michael O'Connor.
Our most famous woodchippers apprentice is Julia Gillard - once the girlfriend of Forestry Union boss, Michael O'Connor. They are still close friends. She admits he remains a trusted adviser.
How's this for more cozy connections - Michael O'Connor's brother is called Brendan and happens to be the Employment Participation Minister who works closely with Gillard.
Now let's look at Penny Wong, Minister for Climate Change. Senator Wong used to be part of O'Connor's loggers division of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU). Later she advised the NSW Carr Government on logging issues. This makes you wonder if Penny Wong's anti-conservation position of the past will influence her policies on climate change and carbon emissions (see Australia - world leaders in bovine poo).
Then there's Jill Lewis, former Timber Communities Australia executive who's now with the NSW Trucking Association; Robyn Bain (formerly Loydell), who held the same position with TCA, is now chief of the Cement Industry Federation. She says that women have a natural advantage of not being afraid of an emotional argument. Then we have Dominique La Fontaine, a past lobbyist for clearfelling and woodchipping, now heading the Clean Energy Council (!).
Another woman who started off pushing the barrow for the pulp and paper industry is Belinda Robinson, now chief executive of the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association.
Gas industry promoter Cheryl Cartwright was a former adviser to one-time Forestry Minister Warren Truss.
The CEO of the national umbrella group for logging, the National Association of Forest Industries, is Catherine Murphy, a former adviser to Opposition leader Brendan Nelson. And who doesn't know Trish Caswell - a eco-Judas who went from the Australian Conservation Foundation into the logging industry's lap. The Victorian Association of Forest Industries successfully head-hunted her. She said the strategy of having women as figureheads in these traditionally dirty, tough, male-dominated industries softened their image in the media. Mascara-thick eyelashes are the antithesis of a beer gut in a check shirt.
Maybe the green movement needs a few burly blokes to thump politician's desks.
Jill/Herald Sun 9.2.08
Sawlog driven - my arse
The last VicForests Annual Report revealed that we tax payers are aiding the industry to log our native forests. This is on top of their existing subsidies (see last Potoroo). Now we learn that almost 4,745 MCGs of Victoria's native forests (9,000 ha) are lost to chainsaws every year and most is woodchipped.
The FoI documents request by The Wilderness Society show that, of the logs that come from our forests, sawn timber accounts for only 12%. Another 3% is turned into pallets. The rest is pulped down for paper.
Two paper companies that bought the tree trunks, Australian Paper near Morwell and the Japanese-owned South East Fibre Exports (Daishowa), posted a combined profit of $87 million last financial year, according to the Australian Stock Exchange and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.
So why is our government selling the bulk of our forests off soooo cheaply at $2-10 a tonne for raw wood? Even as carbon stores at the cheapest rates, they would be worth many times more if left alone.
VicForests justified this by saying selling the bulk of trees cheaply to paper factories made it cheaper to clearfell for the small amount of sawlogs. Therefore, even if one tree a year was sawn into timber, the slaughter of forests would still be defined as 'sawlog driven'.
Why not write and ask the Minister and Premier to explain. Gavin Jennings, and John Brumby both get their mail at: Parliament House Spring St Melbourne. 3000
Jill / Sunday Age 20.1.08 / TWS
POPULATION - the taboo topic
Everyone alive contributes to the environmental degradation of the world. Those in developed countries like Australia have a larger impact, even while trying to practice a low-impact lifestyle.
Dr Barry Walters is Clinical Associate Professor of Obstetric Medicine at the King Edward Hospital in Perth. He has proposed a baby levy or carbon tax for larger families. His ideas have attracted many negative responses. But what he is saying has merit. Below is an extract of his writings.
Every family choosing to have more than a defined number of children should be charged a carbon tax that would fund the planting of enough trees to offset the carbon cost generated by a new human being. The average annual CO2 emissions by an Australian individual are about 17 metric tons, including energy usage. As a biomass of trees in a mature forest sequesters about 6 metric tonnes of CO2 per ha per year, each child born should be offset by planting 4 hectares of trees, to allow for the time they take to reach maturity, and attrition through crop losses, bushfires, dieback and so on. This infers a child levy of at least $5,000 at birth (to purchase the land to plant the trees) and an annual tax of $400-$800 thereafter for the life of the child (for maintenance of the afforestation project, based on 1990 figures, and probably more now).
By the same reasoning, contraceptives, intrauterine devices, diaphragms, condoms and sterilisation procedures should attract carbon credits for the user and the prescriber that would offset their income taxes and lead to rewards for family planning clinics and hospitals that provide such greenhouse-friendly services.
The topic has also raised hackles in the British Parliament ...
As for ... fertility of the human race - we are getting to the point where you simply can't discuss it, and we are thereby refusing to say anything sensible about the biggest challenge facing the Earth; and no, whatever it may now be conventional to say, that single biggest challenge is not global warming. This is a secondary challenge. The primary challenge facing our species is the reproduction of our species itself.
Depending on how fast you read, the population of the planet is growing with every word that skitters beneath your eyeball. There are more than 211,000 people being added every day, and a population the size of Germany every year.
The UN ... is predicting that there will be 9.2 billion people by 2050, and I simply cannot understand why no one discusses this impending calamity, and why no world statesmen have the guts to treat the issue with the seriousness it deserves. How the hell can we witter on about tackling global warming, and reducing consumption, when we are so relentlessly adding to the number of consumers? The answer is politics and political cowardice.
British MP, Boris Johnson 25.10.07
"By 2050, the world population will have reached 10 billion, and farmers here and across the world will, over the next 40 years, need to double the total production of food, triple yields per hectare and do it on less land, using less water."
British Conservative Cabinet Minister Baroness Shephard of Northwold
11.12.07 Western Mail
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