Climate change, carbon sequestration and Tasmania

Forest certification

Forest management interacts in a world of increased globalisation. Australia, for example, imports from China large volumes of timber products, many of which are manufactured from wood from Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, the Solomon Islands and other developing countries.

Much of this wood is semi-legal or illegal due to corrupt governments and unscrupulous companies. Australian consumers of imported wood products may be complicit in the deforestation of surrounding countries if they purchase forest products that are not certified to an adequate standard.

In order to safeguard consumers - and secure markets for legal producers - it is crucial that products come from forests that meet high-quality management standards. This means that preference should be give to forest products carrying the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) logo, which provides the best guarantee that the products are both legal and sustainable.

If FSC certified forest products are not available, then it is preferable to purchase forest products that carry the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) logo. Although PEFC programmes, including the Australian Forestry Standard, are relatively permissive in terms of their social and environmental practices, they do provide a better safeguard of legality than no logo whatsoever.

Forest, carbon sequestration and Gunns Pulp Mill

I have already written a critique of the deficiencies of the planning processes used to assess Gunns’ Tamar Valley pulp mill under the Pulp Mill Assessment Act (Gale 2008). In my view, the pulp mill is an example of bad environmental governance and should not proceed. The review of the pulp mill under the Pulp Mill Assessment Act resulted in inadequate scrutiny of the range of risks the pulp mill poses to the Tasmanian economy, environment and community.

To these process considerations must now also be added the potential future benefits to Tasmanians of alternative uses of its forest resources for carbon sequestration.

While there are a whole host of unknowns - whether REDD will be included in post-Kyoto arrangements, what terms and conditions will be placed on its operation, whether carbon trading will prove successful, and whether the price of carbon will be sufficient to compensate governments, industry, communities and environmentalists for the opportunity costs of foregoing other productive activities - the potential is certainly there.

Proceeding with the pulp mill now risks foreclosing the adoption of alternative and potentially better policies in the near future. These new policies could not only protect Tasmania’s old-growth forests, but also provide employment opportunities in wilderness protection, natural forest management, plantations, and tourism. These opportunities need to be fully and seriously considered under a new forest politics and policy process.

If proper deliberation under a new forest politics were to occur, I doubt that a pulp mill on the Tamar Valley would emerge as an optimal use of Tasmania’s forest resources in an era of climate change and carbon sequestration. If it were approved under a new forest politics process, however, the proponents could proceed with the full backing of the majority of Tasmanians - in stark contrast to the situation that exists today.