Mark, when your store house is made of wood it seems sensible to protect it from fire. On a recent ABC program the greens claimed that”it would be fantastic to see our forests protected as carbon stores”.

By protection they mean “end logging in native forests” except, “in limited areas where small volumes of timber can be taken from defined areas under strict conditions and for specialty purposes.”

To back up this “carbon store” claim the Wilderness society has released a TV election advertisement featuring Dr Peter McQuillan identified as from the University of Tasmania.

He claimed “But remarkably we’ve just discovered that our native forests store more carbon pollution than any other forest on earth. If we stop logging our unique forests they can store the carbon pollution from nine coal fired power stations every year.”

To back up his claim the wilderness society’s media release explained:
“Research by the Australian National University has found old growth eucalypt forests in Victoria and Tasmania ... could store up to 136 million tonnes of carbon pollution every year ...”

What is not said is that the ANU analysis was funded by the Wilderness society and released in Bali in 2007, and has been subject to detailed criticism.

The ANU made this discovery of “the world’s highest known total biomass carbon density (living plus dead) in 13 sites in the O’Shannassy Catchment Central Highlands of Victoria” which according to the ANU “In February 2009, extensive areas of the O’Shannassy Catchment and elsewhere in the Central Highlands of Victoria were burned in a major conflagration.”

They promised to undertake a major survey of the network of permanent field sites in the catchment to assess changes in post fire carbon stocks.
Will they find the carbon store burnt to the ground? Then we should know if stopping harvesting protected the forest and saved the carbon store!

A quikc glance at the Greens policy page ( http://greens.org.au/policies/environment/environmental-principles ) shows:

"climate change will increase the intensity and frequency of bushfires; scientifically-based, ecologically appropriate use of fire is an important means to protect biodiversity and manage habitat effectively"

And further down:

"develop and adequately fund fuel reduction burning strategies based on the latest research on scientific fire ecology, fire behavior information and indigenous fire management practices, in consultation with experts, custodians and land managers"

"increase funding for bushfire research to include the effective use of fire, strategies for controlling arsonists, and best environmental and fire risk minimization in building practices."

This idea that the Greens Party opposes fuel reduction is just plain wrong.

R1

If you read the article, I did not say they formally oppose FRB, but that their policy of locking-up the forest will create a situation which will invariably make it more difficult to maintain current rates of FRB let alone enable it to be significantly increased as the Bushfires RC recommended.

However, you will have to forgive me for being skeptical about the Greens "support" for FRB when their supporter base in the environmental movement are falling over themselves to so heavily qualify any support on contingencies such as more research that will make it difficult, if not impossible, to meet the RC's recommendation for tripling FRB.