The usual rudimentary grasp of forest ecology wrapped in a veneer of science. The so called "preservation" of natural forests is seen by the ignorant as a step to prevent the loss of the carbon when trees are cut. But if that wood is placed in stable long term storage then there is no emission at all. Hardwood houses will routinely last more than 100 years. Even newsprint has been found in landfills to be completely intact after 60 years and tree stumps on my own property in a high rainfall, decay rich location, are still there after being cut in 1927.

We have aerial photos from 1942 showing almost zero forest cover on land that now has in excess of 300M3 of wood/hectare (above ground only) which is net of past partial harvesting in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. So in total, over 500 tonnes/M3 per hectare of wood has absorbed 250 tonnes of carbon or 915 tonnes of additional CO2/hectare before the carbon in the original trees has even been emitted.

And when we do another partial harvest and take out another 150m3 of wood per hectare (275t CO2) the remaining trees will then be able to grow and capture another 275 tonnes of CO2 before the carbon in the removed trees is emitted.

If we do not do any more partial harvests the trees will expend all their energy in competition with each other. Their growth will slow and any increase in one tree will come at the expense of decay or death of another. The net greenhouse contribution will decline to zero.

The gonzo green notion of "preserving" forests is a sick perversion dressed as forest stewardship. For the lost greenhouse benefits of on-going growth and stable carbon storage far outweigh the small change in CH4 and NO2 that the author would have us focus on.

As a forester I am always concerned when I read articles such as this that imply that it is possible to 'preserve' Australia's natural forests as carbon stores in perpetuity. The writer makes no mention of it, but this notion lies at the heart of campaigns by The Wilderness Society and others that misuse climate change as an arguement to 'lock up' forests, specifically to stop wood production.

As has been demonstrated so powerfully in the past five years, periodic severe fire will always cause carbon storage in our forests to wax and wane. The 2003 fires apparently emitted greenhouse gases equivalent to a quarter of Australia' total annual emissions.Locking out human use and management will only make this worse.

But further than this, locking out wood production from our natural forests would be considerably counter-productive given the role of wood products in storing carbon and their role in off-setting demand for less environmentally friendly substitutes (concrete and steel). If we don't produce our own hardwood we encourage imports of tropical hardwoods from countries who on the other hand we are pressuring to try to control deforestation. We should also consider the greenhouse emissions associated with freighting products which we could produce locally.

Then there is the benefit of maintaing a portion of our forest (currently a net 6% of Australia's public forests) in a state of vigourous growth on a sustainable 100 year cycle of harvesting. This sequesters and puts into storage far more carbon than could otherwise be stored by just letting the same forests grow old.

I think this has the potential to be a scam due to exaggeration and pork barrelling. The author omits to mention that the European emissions trading scheme deliberately gives no credit to claimed CO2 sinks such as tree planting schemes, nor to my knowledge of offsets to NOx and methane. Otherwise farmers will be feeding toasted muesli to flatulent sheep in order to claim a methane credit.

The focus should be on
1) debits not credits eg to drive a movement away from coal
2) concentrated sources of GHGs not diffuse sources like forests

The problem with credits is they create the illusion that emissions are somehow exonerated and can therefore be maintained. There should be less emissions in the first place.

The land clearing and the fire in the bush are destroying too much green areas. We should stop this before is too late.
http://saveourbushland.blogspot.com/

Hello Folks

My two cents on CO2 and agriculture involves the push by some to change the way we grow food from the modern agriculture back to methods practiced 100 years ago.
www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=071807J

This does not even address the huge amount of forests and wetlands that would have to be destroyed just to maintain present world yields, if we converted to 100% organic farming.

I have also written on a variety of aspects of GMO's and world agriculture. http://web.mala.bc.ca/wager

No one can argue that agriculture has a HUGE impact on the planet. Therefore how do we do it better in the future is the million dollar question?

I look forward to the debate.

With respect, RobW, how we do agriculture better is not directly the subject of this article. The article purports to deal with natural forest 'mothballing' as opposed to managment; and the contended benefit of conversion of existing agricultural and pastoral land uses that the author considers marginal to NATIVE naturally regenerated, as opposed to managed and harvested, forest or woodland.

If anything, in an Australian context, the article would purport to provide a scientific basis for further shutting down agriculture and pastoralism. It is pleasing to see commentary by a professional forester, and by a long-term landholder, revealing the inconsistencies in what appears to be the author's advocated use for what is largely other peoples' allegedly marginal land.

It is interesting to note the author's endorsement of what both Perseus and MWPOYNTER each highlight, the stage of most rapid accumulation of wood (and therefore carbon) being in the regrowth after harvesting in managed forests, albeit that he does so in relation to re-establishment of native woodland upon marginal agricultural land. In the light of this it is doubly curious that the author does not focus upon the enormously greater areas of native forest or woodland that are held by or under the Crown, with a view to implementing and maximizing managed harvesting regimes on those lands as a matter of priority.

It would also be interesting to have a comparison of wood accumulation rates per hectare for re-afforested marginal agricultural land, as compared to higher rainfall area managed native forest.

All in all, the article would seem to have the appearance of providing a scientific justification for just one of a whole raft of proposals that seem aimed at, at least until title can be transferred in totality to foreign interests, shutting down Australia as either a viable trading nation, or as a refuge of enjoyable self-sufficiency in the event it is locked out of fair international trading opportunities.

A repetition or amplification of Perseus' discourses elsewhere upon how Australia has been dudded in proposed international emission credit schemes would be anything but boring.

RobW, you've got it barse-ackwards re. yields from organic farming.

In terms of resources -- land area, water, fuel, chemicals -- organic farming has very high yields, quite comparable to industrial agriculture.

The only thing that makes organic farming more expensive than extractive agribusiness is that it is labour-intensive. In a high-wage economy it needs premium prices to compete, and only a few will pay. As chemical feedstocks dwindle and fuel prices soar, the cost of the big monocultures will rise to match, and we'll see small farms coming into their own again.

Caring for a farm requires real intimacy with the land; you can't get that from the cockpit of a cropduster or a combine harvester.

Thanks Forest. Note how the author has used the plantation growth rates from high quality high rainfall sites to justify planting trees on marginal agricultural land?

This is the same scam that Aila Keto and Rod McGuinnes pulled in justifying the closure of 800,000 hectares of Qld State Forest. They said it would only take 10,000ha of plantation to replace that wood supply, based on an average of 25m3/ha/year. A year or two later the same dudes called for an additional 40,000ha of plantation but didn't bother to admit that the original claims were complete bull$hit.

To seriously think one can get anywhere near that yield on 600mm country (without stealing someone else's ground water) is either complete delusion or criminal deception.

And my advice to any landholder being encouraged to convert even marginal country to forest is, "NEVER, EVER, DO BUSINESS WITH SPIVS".

Did you know the gas used in your vehicles airconditioning system,
134a, can become extremly dangerous in the presence of heat, Flame, extremely hot metal i.e exhaust, the gases that can be formed in this instance are:

Phosgene Gas
Carbonyl flouride
Hydrofluoric acid
Take the time to google these and see how scary they are.

HFC 134a refrigerant also has a greenhouse warming potential of 1300
that means releasing one tonne of 134a is the same as releasing 1300 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

there is no known way to stop this gas leaking from your vehicles airconditioning system.