I guess the PR people didn't like describing a net CO2 absorber as 'carbon negative' so as Orwell predicted we've now changed the meaning of words to suit our needs. I agree that ANU is conflating science with ideological correctness and they will undermine their credibility. Temperate healthy forests in the northern hemisphere are generally regarded as carbon neutral and most likely so are Australian forests.

I think we must pay more for timber from large trees. Imported timber must be certified as sustainably harvested. The higher price may enable selective logging in Australia that avoids the need for clearfelling and burnoffs. I believe that old growth logging not only changes the local microclimate but fails to take into account future climate change. Saplings of E. regnans will never again grow 100 metres tall because they won't get 400 years of cool damp conditions. Therefore they should be left alone for aesthetic and conservation reasons. Put the plantation trees on steroids or whatever to make them the sole source of domestic timber.

On the issue of forestry, I guess I sit somewhere between the log-at-all-costs machinations of the Gunnerment here in Tasmania, and the tree-hugging shenanigans of the dreadlocked, unwashed Still Wild, Still Threatened mob.

I am not against forestry, per se: I do believe that a sustainable forestry industry can be achieved, but I'm not sure that we're going about it the right way, here in Australia, and especially Tasmania.

As far as I *know*, Australian forests are rather different to say, European or South American forests. Essentially, they're much slower-growing, even similar or the same species as those found on other continents.

With that in mind, for Australia to try and run a forestry industry on the same scale as, say, Scandinavian countries, is clearly unsustainable.

Which is not to say that Australia or Tasmania can't support a forestry industry at all. Rather, I suspect that forestry is one industry we should be more than happy to rely more heavily on imports for. Forestry in Australia should *probably* be moved away from large-scale pulp and woodchip production, and more towards high-quality, probably smaller-scale, timber production.

I realise that that would probably mean job losses - and believe me, having been on the receiving end of a "rationalised" industry, that's not something I take lightly - but, sadly, that's a bitter pill we may have to offer up for the common good. That doesn't mean forestry workers should just be shown the door, either. I'm sure a satisfactory outcome could be found, with enough goodwill and funding.

The greens are the reincarnation of pre-7th. century pagans who worshiped trees; each 'god' had a tree, and it was forbidden to cut one down.

These same greens,who took over conrol of rural councils in Victoria, were responsible for the recent bushfires because they refused to allowed native vegetation to be cleared.

It has been found recently that trees encourage rainfall...and that where trees are taken away, the number of rainfall days reduces. This applies to forests that become fragmented or patchy as well as where land is cleared. This being the case, the consequences of clearing trees is not just to do with carbon-related matters. It can impact on rainfall. This factor needs to be included when considering the impacts of deforestation.

I understand this research has been carried out in Western Australia, Brazil, and parts of Europe.

we..need to make..more/sacrifices..[apparently]..the remedy..by the powers that be..is to double the price of our/energy,..via installing a carbon tax componant..,on top of the increased price...

we well know how enronesque/accounting..and pricing..has pervaded the energy market...thus..if a cost must be paid..lets avoid the tax-way[that never has worked]

we thus..get into what sacrifices..can easily help meet.need..[and carbon-capture..in forrests..[or by..green-algae..seems right up there..lest we forget..trees convert carbon di-oxide into oxigen...and we all..need that to breath

another point..that reveals the absurdity of this new tax..is the way its being gifted to the biggest poluters..to wit..BIG BUSINESS..if we really need this new tax..it would be best if we each.!!..got a carbon allowance/credit...that if we exceed..the limit..THEN..becomes..[and only then]..a tax

working much like gst...and be available off..a C-tax credit card...that failure to present[swipe the card's/credit..monetises the debt..[according to the current carbon/..market/price]

the pitfall with the proposed CAP..[and reduce]...and trade ,...means that essentially big-business trades this..ever reducing cap..[into as much as we..the actual tax payers../can pay...noting the only ones getting this gift..will be the very poluters...

TOO BIG TO FAIL..because they..[arnt allowed/cant fail...is the very reason they..[and not us]..are getting the gift of carbon credits....and them..that will be selling their carbon CREDITs...not us

we..the mugs without voice..[get yet further taxation..but this taxation cost..will be set..by the markets..trading an ever reducing capped/carbon allowance...that they buy..from their other big business mates

lock up the forrests..[capture the carbon/and convert it into energy via algae]...give us the tax cedits...but the case for carbon caused global warming ISNT PROVEN..thus we see the debate changing...lol...

such clever buggers the treasonous media..[serving their mates adgenda

[and the people..let them get their new tax]...if things were fair we would get credit..[not tax..]

where is the peoples share of the common weal?..forestors get their forrest's/..fishermen get their fish/..miners get their minerals/..even farmers get theirs..what the people get..is[ever more taxation..WITHOUT representation

[the people just get extra burdons..ever more tax..[any tax they[sic] decide THEY..[govt and their mates..need to do their business..

capitalists system my butt...thats socialism..[for big business]..or comunism..[where the elite/rich suck dry the poor]..wake up aussie

Phil: you seem to have forgotten that there are two types of logging: (1) sustainable, where each coupe is logged only very 10 years or so, and then only fully mature trees are harvested, thereby reducing the canopy which encourages growth of the younger trees, and (2) plantation, where logging involves clear fell followed by replanting. Both of these maximise takeup of CO2, whereas old growth evergreen forests hardly absorb any new CO2.

Mark Poynter's admirable piece was understated: when timber is not allowed to be used in the walls etc of new homes, the alternatives are not only aluminium and steel, but above all concrete and its derivatives, by far the most CO2-intensive building material (in manufacture), but with zilch storage, whereas timber in house walls doors and decks lasts as long as they do, storing carbon all the while. It speaks volumes for the general level of knowledge and/or integrity in the Wilderness Society that it chooses to ignore this fact of life.

Mark, thanks for another thoughtful expose on academic activism.

In September 2006 (Bulletin of the Ecological Society of Australia) one of the researchers, Sandy Berry tells of the WildCountry project. She states it “is an initiative of the Wilderness Society, the industry partner in the ARC Linkage Grant that provides much of our funding. The research agenda has been developed in collaboration with the WildCountry Science Council.”

The Australian Research Council (ARC) identifies the grant as LP0455163 to the ANU and lists the members of the WildCountry Science council.

The $440,000 grant of taxpayer’s funds was for the “Development and Testing of an Australia-wide Biodiversity Conservation Assessment and Planning”, yet in the green carbon report it is acknowledged that “These analyses also drew on data and models developed as part of an Australian Research Council Linkage grant, LP0455163.”

Like last year’s green carbon book that stated “A technical paper that details the source data, the methods used and the full results is being prepared”, this new paper is also short on detail. Instead of inventory data of each forest plot we are told “Our field measurements and calculations revealed that maximum biomass carbon density for a E. regnans-dominated site was 1,819 tC_ha_1 in living above-ground biomass and 2,844 tC_ha_1 in total biomass from stands with a well-defined structure of overstory and midstory trees (see Fig. 1).

Yet 'Fig. 1' appears to be part of a photo shown on the ABC science web site reporting the story see http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2009/06/16/2599532.htm

The ABC version includes an access road, has it been ‘cropped’ out for the scientific paper that claims “it had been subject to minimal human disturbance”?

What would have happened to the carbon density if the 10 metre plot had been taken on the road?

It would be a different story from those in the Regnans, described as the tallest flowering plants in the world that can tower more than 100 metres and can grow more than a metre per year to exceed 50 metres within 35 years and maximum height within 200 years in the absence of fire.

Maybe we should put all carbon-related products such as coal and oil underground where they naturally belong to grow trees and such to save this world for our descendants?

Certainly our scientific reasoning has the other alternatives, so why don't we just get to it?

I myself can't help cause' I'm going on 89.

Cheers, BB, Buntine, WA.

Last year there was one thing I thought Mackey et al's green carbon book might be good for - curing insomnia. In the early morning my eyelids were getting heavy as I struggled through the endless pages of ideology looking for the scientific basis; but I sat bolt upright when I got to their statement “...A technical paper that details the source data, the methods used and the full results is being prepared”. Ahh! The Cold Fusion ploy. Straight to the media. Sycophant 'reviewers'. A con job by the Fenner Carbon Clowns. I'm going to read the new PNAS item tonight to see if it can overcome the three short blacks I'll be having at 1130 tonight.

Mark, we still have to go trout fishin' sometime.

Mark, I think you have explained what is a quite complex area very well.

To Taswegian – Initially it seems like a nice idea for all imported timber to be from certified forests, but if so, shouldn't this also apply to all imported goods made from wood, such as furniture, packaging and paper? Otherwise there will be an unfair advantage given to imported goods (eg furniture) competing with Australian made furniture (and it would apply an environmental double-standard). Ultimately, of course, if import restrictions were just applied to raw timber and not to manufactured goods made from wood, you would just see the manufacturing go off-shore.

Secondly, much of the sustainable fine hardwood that Australia imports from the USA, Europe and Canada is not certified, yet comes from small farm sustainable wood-lots. These “little forests”, which are maybe 5 – 20 acres of trees like Maple (where Maple Syrup comes from!), Walnut (yup, that’s your nuts) and Oak provide ongoing sustainable supplementary income for these farmers, and have done so for generations. However, in many cases it simply isn't feasible for these guys to get ten acres or so of woods certified, and so, for instance, only about 5% of the hardwood forests of the US are certified. For these farmers, certification is just too expensive, time-consuming and beyond the capacity of their resources. Imagine coming in at night, after digging fence holes all day, having finished the milking and fed the calves, help your wife with some chores, and sit down with the kids and help them with their homework, and then you have to do your certification paper-work.

I recently heard the following film review:

“THE BURNING SEASON by writer/director Cathy Henkel.
It’s about the problem of deforestation IN INDONESIA and the subsequent burning of the forests to clear the land for plantations of palm trees for their oil.
Frightening statistics abound. THIS BURNING IS RESPONSIBLE FOR 20% OF THE WORLD’S CARBON EMISSIONS
http://www.abc.net.au/atthemovies/txt/s2603294.htm

Quite a high figure, so I did some checking, and found this:

“Aside from affecting biodiversity, 20 percent of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere - a major contributor to global climate change - is from deforestation. Until recently, policymakers have focused on coal-burning power plants and SUVs as global warming culprits, but in 2007, for the first time, the United Nations Framework Commission on Climate Change included forests as official sources of carbon emissions - and targets for action. As a result, entrepreneurs are building businesses that save forests by making them worth more standing than torched.”
http://www.illegal-logging.info/item_single.php?item=news&item_id=3347&

It seems likely that the ABC film reviewer got it wrong – FOREST BURNING IN GENERAL IS RESPONSIBLE FOR 20%.

But what caught my attention was this little gem:

“IN 2007, FOR THE FIRST TIME , the United Nations Framework Commission on Climate Change INCLUDED FORESTS AS OFFICIAL SOURCES OF CARBON EMISSIONS - and targets for action”.

Am missing/misreading something here --it seems various UN bodies were talking of culpability long before 2007.

Yet, 20% of emissions/sources were not factored in until 2007!

Draw your own conclusions!

Horus: the UN agencies and others like WWF & co are incapable of - or unwilling to - distinguish between gross and net. They are also guilty of latent but innate racism. The truths are (1) deforestation that leads to plantation forestry or oil palm plantations and the like actually take up more CO2 per annum than was being stored in old but moribund forests; (2) they never castigate white nations that do just as much if not more logging than the Indonesians Malaysians and other browns - have you ever seen them hugging the trees in Finland and Scandinavia before they get logged?. As ever there is one law for the white rich and another for the poor browns.

Here are some facts (from FAO) that you will NEVER see in any emanation from Greenpeace and their fellow racists: black Africa's total round wood production (ie logs) in 2002 was 66.8 million cubic metres, those wicked Indonesians managed 80 mn cu.m., but white Europe's was 480 mn cu.m. and North America 615 mn cu.m. But the disparities are immaterial as about 100% of industrial roundwood whether from black or white countries ends up as furniture and building materials that STORE CO2 indefinitely, a fact Greenpeace (and the original auhtors of this thread) will never admit, but then why would they being ignorant if not both racist and dishonest? So the truth is that there is no NET loss of CO2 from logging, in fact the world's forest industries and tree crops including oil palm coffee cocoa and tea are net absorbers of CO2.

Here are some more annoying facts (for the authors of this thread): Oil palm takes up 25.7 tonnes of CO2 per hectare p.a., tropical forests manage just 9.62. But then it is only black/brown countries that do oil palm, and they are also the main consumers (palm oil is a food, a fact you will never get from Greenpeace and co) but who cares if they have to do without or buy more expensive olive oil from us whities?

I do support sustainable forestry operations in Australia. I also disagree with the notion that forests can be "protected" by drawing a line around them on a map, declaring a national park and then left undermanaged (PR at low cost - "win/win" for attention-seeking pollies). That being said, there were two points I would like to make about the paper.

The fact that there is a year between a paper being submited and being published is not unusual in peer-reviewed journals. To imply a conspiracy weakens your argument. The other point is that the issue of fire is addressed in the paper, where it points out that the majority of the resulting dead biomass decays at the slow rate found in moist temperate forests.

I must correct an error in my last posting, by "original authors of this thread" I meant to refer to the disgraceful authors cited by the admirable Mark Poynter, namely the ANU "scientists" Professor Brendan Mackey, Dr Heather Keith, Sandra Berry, and Professor David Lindenmayer, and their orginal paper published in August 2008. Their follow-up paper published just days ago (in late June 2009) - entitled Re-evaluation of forest biomass carbon stocks and lessons from the world’s most carbon dense forests, by Keith, Mackey, and Lindenmayer, is just as bad.

The Wildcountry scientific council of academic volunteers justified their activism and reports like this latest study and last year’s green carbon in their paper 'Applying landscape –ecological principals to regional conservation' published in 2007 by calculating that only “about 6 percent of Australia is in a secure protected area.”

This claim was made despite the results of the 2006 Collaborative Australia Protected Area Database (CAPAD) showing 8,780 formal protected areas, covering 89,528,859 hectares or 11.64% of Australia.

These figures do not include informal reserves for example in Tasmania CAPAD only counted 2.7 million ha of protected area or 39.79%, yet when informal reserves are also counted; conservation reserves are 2.9 million ha or 44%.

The Wildcountry council is also critical of the comprehensive, adequate and representative (CAR) reserves created by the Regional Forest Agreement. Yet they fail to compare percentages of forest reserves against international benchmarks.

Again for Tasmania, the independent Commonwealth statistics are:

Native forest 3.1 million hectares
Native forest in reserves 1.4 million hectares (47%)
Old-growth forest 1.2 million hectares
Old-growth forest in reserves 970 000 hectares (79%)
High quality wilderness reserved 1,880,800 ha or 97%

This outstanding achievement compares with the CBD, IUCN and WWF target for forest conservation of 10% by 2010.

Australia’s forest CAR reserve targets were also praised at Earth Summit 2 by Dr Claude Martin, Director General of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) - International, who said Australia’s policy for the conservation of forest biodiversity significantly exceeded the WWF’s minimum goal, and then Secretary General of the United Nations, Mr. Kofi Annan, who praised Australia’s leadership in forest conservation.

Yet these academics have ignored these achievements and continue to waste scarce resources in support of the Wilderness Society agenda against Australia’s sustainable forest management record, when these resources are claimed to be needed to combat REDD, Reducing Emissions due to Deforestation and degradation in Developing countries that the ANU authors state that the IPCC reported as contributing up to 18% of the World’s GHG emissions.

Another concise, straight-forward, excellent case presented by Mark Poynter. I'm not a forester, but it seems clear to me where academic standards are being maintained, and where they are not.

To Anthony:
Re How the ANU researchers have addressed fire

Professor Mackey et al completely and quite deliberately ignored fire in their major paper - the Green Carbon paper - published last year.

However, I agree that their less comprehensive, recently released second paper did mention fire. As you say they noted that fire in an "old growth" forest does not remove all carbon because much can remain stored in burnt trunks. (Note: They could scarcely ignore fire this time because their study area - the O'Shannessy catchment - was largely cooked in February's "Black Saturday" fires).

What they say may be true of an "old growth" forest, but where foresters are critical of the paper is that it fails to address the role of fire in preventing forests from becoming "old growth" in the first place.

The frequency of severe fire is such that it is simply implausable to expect all forests to reach "old growth" if left undisturbed in national parks - yet that is essentially the central thrust of the Green Paper and the associated Wilderness Society forest carbon campaign.

Also, although dead stags may remain standing after fire, the damage they sustain initiates an accellerated process of rot and decay which must equate to carbon loss from the system.

I heard that the CO2 emissions from the Victoria bushfires was so high as to rival the entire country's annual emissions. I also heard that Rudd wanted to exclude these emissions from Australia'a measured carbon footprint.

Unless the trees are harvested and the carbon captured in some form such as paper or wood, at some point the tree will burn, or die and decay.

Sustained forestry is more carbon positive than old growth.

All roads lead to Rome, is an old saying, and it seems the answer to all questions of good government that are not being answered today, lead back to the High Court and its dysfunctional nature. The Forests question is simply another case of misguided scientific postulations, which cannot be tested properly in Australia since 1952.

Before 1952, there were two places where public policy could be tested, scientific theories tried and either found wanting or confirmed. One was in the Courts of Parliament, tainted by whoever can afford the experts and grab media headlines, and the need to be reelected every three years or so, and the calm cool headed confines if a Ch III court. I would thoroughly recommend the book State of Fear by Crichton, as an example of what can happen in a society when both review systems are still working.

I grew up on the Atherton Tablelands where there was a sustainable and world class rainforest logging industry, established on Crown Forests maintaining a sizable workforce of hard working and reasonably well paid workers. To appease city voters Graham Richardson came and closed off those forests by using the World Heritage Listing, of all State owned Forests. I know for a fact that in the old rainforest, the trees fell and rotted very occasionally, but in the logged forests smaller trees got light and soon grew tall and strong, and straight to make sustainable timber.

In Australia today there are no parallel review systems, and the only one that remains is nine dysfunctional Parliaments pumping out laws, often conflicting or downright destructive of the environment, and the people who live in it. The shame of February 7 2009, is on the head of the High Court for allowing the courts system to be replaced with Courts and Judges, and the cool calm environment for review they provided for the peace order and good government of the Commonwealth, by a Justice and a jury, taken from every Australian citizen.

The sins of a few are visited on the many. Don’t let the dead die in vain.

To Peter the Believer, keep your “head up” and be not disheartened. To quote from John Buchan - "You may have successes but never victories". Keep your courage, keep your cool, maintain your integrity and honesty, and remember, every little bit that you do will often have an effect, in ways you may never know. It is so painfully hard to have seen perfectly prosperous and sustainable industries, communities, families and businesses be “shot down” for shallow political gain. But remember, there's only so much "farm" they can sacrifice for green city votes and to satisfy the ever increasing demands of the clamouring lobby groups. Eventually they will need to start “cannibalizing their own”, and the tide will turn.

Victoria saw the consequences of rampant green strategy, as far as forestry goes, on Black Saturday in February 2009.

The sooner these ignorant green cretins are removed from all offices of authority and make room for real people, who understand the value of "management" of the environment the better

Whilst Moses lead the Jews out of the Wilderness, the maniacal false prophets of the Greens seem hell bent on leading Australia into the "Wilderness".

If tree is blown over at one of the ANU authors monitoring sites the dead carbon biomass is measured and added to the total above ground store of carbon. If that tree's identical twin is felled nearby and the wood used in a house or in furniture, the IPCC and the authors add the carbon to that emitted to the atmosphere by "deforestation". Anything to get the "right" answer.

I've never heard such garbage in my life. It simply demonstrates that to qualify as a "forester" one needs an IQ about then same as one's hatsize.

The bottom line is that Australia's forests - and particularly the eucalypts - have existed and done well for at least 8,000,000 years, as has the rest of the environment and natural ecology. In about 200 years self-serving morons like you and your lot have entirely fcuked up the whole system.

You've created drought where there NEVER used to be any, along with erosion problems that are a threat to the whole country, and rising salinity (which John Howard said was the biggest threat Australia faced, bar none). You've altered climates and reduced water-producing catchments (and artesian basins like South Gippsland) by over 40% with your bastardisation of a native forest into monocrops. You've destroyed countless native animals in the most barbaric way (and continue to to do so regularly in various ways - the permanent destruction of habitat being but one example). The enviro-vandalism caused by forest-destruction (including farming activities) has resulted in by far the greatest extinction of species anywhere in the world, and the contamination of both groundwater and near-offshore oceans.

I won't even begin on the carbon-emission question. The best thing about that is that it will help destroy the bastards who are destroying our essential public forests for their own personal gain. The sooner your breed is driven to extinction the better off the rest of the world will be.