[Greens-Media] Rudd Government maintains wilful blindness to forest carbon release here in Australia

[O'Connor, Cassy (Sen C. Milne)]

MEDIA RELEASE
Rudd Government maintains wilful blindness to forest carbon release here
in Australia

Launceston 24 April 2008:    Australian Greens' climate change
spokesperson, Senator Christine Milne, today commended the Rudd
Government's stated commitment to helping protect the carbon in Papua
New Guinea's forests, but said the story is exactly the same for
Australia's native forests and continued inaction is inexcusable.

"I was pleased to hear Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith, say from PNG on
radio this morning that accurate accounting of forest carbon must be a
priority as we move towards emissions' trading.

"Mr Smith said, 'We're working very closely with Papua New Guinea on
climate change issues and a lot of that is because of the vast tracts of
forest that Papua New Guinea has...'*"

"Well, we can insert 'Tasmania' or 'Victoria' for Papua New Guinea.  The
protection of PNG's carbon rich forests from logging and burning makes
complete sense, but it is plainly ridiculous to focus all our efforts to
Australia's north when here at home the release of stored carbon from
native forests continues apace. 

"Today, all of Tasmania is blanketed by a thick smoke haze from forestry
burns.  Every day, thousands of tonnes of bankable carbon is being
felled and torched in our forests.  This is a climate crime because once
this carbon is lost it takes hundreds of years for it to be recaptured
in a regrowing forest.

"If it is to have any credibility on climate change, the Rudd Government
must immediately move to end the substantial and unjustifiable release
of stored carbon from Australia's carbon-sink forests, particularly in
Tasmania, Victoria and south-east NSW.

"In his media interview this morning, Mr Smith was clearly not across
significant developments in the way forest carbon is measured.   It is
already possible for Australia to measure forest carbon much more
accurately than we do at present, but it hasn't been a Federal
Government or logging industry priority to know the carbon facts.

"Forest accounting methodologies are improving all the time.  It appears
inevitable that  industrialised nations will explicitly account for
carbon losses and gains from the forestry sector in the next commitment
period, post-Kyoto in 2012.   This will create a significant financial
incentive to reduce logging, especially in mature, carbon rich forests,
and to maximise regrowth.

"Australia will be obliged to adopt a dramatically new approach to how
its own forests are managed," Senator Milne said.

Media contact:   	Cassy O'Connor   03 6224 8899 or 0400 628 939   

*Interview with Radio National Breakfast, Steve Cannane. 7.40 am, 24
April 2008 http://www.abc.net.au/rn/breakfast/