Today’s release of the government’s proposed Improved Native Forest Method, which allows governments to claim carbon credits in return for stopping logging has been welcomed by the North East Forest Alliance and North Coast Environment Council as “providing a way to end native forest logging on public land”.
“This is a game changer” said NEFA spokesperson Dailan Pugh. “Over the past 100 years logging has removed most large trees from State Forests, releasing more than half the carbon stored in our forests into the atmosphere.
“If forests are allowed to recover then they can remove their lost carbon from the atmosphere and store it out of harms way in their wood and soils. “The NSW Government has said that the creation of the Great Koala National Park is predicated upon being able to claim carbon credits, now they can proceed.
“They will be able to earn over $300 million in Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) over the first 15 years 1 , which we are assured will go into park management and rehabilitation of degraded forests.
“We can repair some of the mess left by logging” Mr Pugh said.
“Modelling by Mandala Partners for the Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation 2 estimates that stopping logging of all NSW’s native State Forests could generate about 1.5 million ACCUs a year, returning over $1.5 billion to the NSW government over 15 years to reinvest in regional forest management and support an estimated 1,700 forest jobs such as pest and weed removal, fire management, and protection of cultural and environmental assets.
“Instead of paying $20-30 million a year to log and degrade NSW’s public native forests, by protecting forests the government will be able to make over $100 million a year to pay for a transition package for affected loggers, forest management, new recreation facilities and forest rehabilitation” NCEC spokesperson Susie Russell said.
“As the forests mature they will improve habitat for a multitude of threatened species, increase stream flows, reduce flooding, reduce fire threat and intensity, and better withstand the growing impacts of climate heating” Ms Russell said.
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