What They Say
Malcolm Fraser - October 22, 2008:
In an interview with The Age, former Prime Minister
Malcolm Fraser has recommended abolition of
woodchipping in native forests as one of the solutions
to the climate change problem. He said that Australia
had more than enough plantation timber to meet its
needs.
Mr Fraser called for government action to go much
further than just emissions trading.
"Sign me up! No woodchipping native forests."
"The beauty of natural eco-systems such as forests is in their evolutionary potential, their resilience in changing climatic conditions."
Australia’s native forests offer a positive and low cost way to dramatically cut greenhouse gas emissions. Instead of woodchipping, we should recognise native forests as our most important living carbon stores. Native forests are an essential natural mechanism for stabilising atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide in the short and long term.
The vast majority of native forest wood ends up as woodchips, not as manufactured goods such as chairs and fruit bowls.
Native forests are massive carbon stores, and that the logging of them emits much more carbon than that stored in the tiny tiny percentage of wood that ends up in a chair - It is like someone bulldozing your house, making a fruit bowl out of the rubble, and saying, “aint this great, I’ve made you a fruitbowl”.
Native forests are completely different to plantations when it comes to carbon.
Our native forests are gigantic carbon banks that have been storing carbon for centuries. When we log our forests, only a small portion of the tree is taken away. The rest goes straight into the atmosphere as the forest is deliberately burned. And what is taken out goes mainly to produce woodchips which break down quickly and release carbon back into the atmosphere. A tiny tiny percentage ends up in sold wood products. And even these eventually get thrown away and rot or burn.
Plantations, grown on cleared land, can provide us with all our wood and paper needs.
Plantations can produce our wood. Let native forests produce our water, store our carbon and protect our native wildlife.