Victorian forestry industries reject yesterday’s non-peer-reviewed report published by The Tree Projects and Victorian Forest Alliance, with the author, Dr Jennifer Sanger, simply rehashing her previous, equally disputed report on CO2 emissions from native forestry in Tasmania, Victorian Forest Products Association (VFPA) CEO Deb Kerr said today.
“This report is nothing more than a glossy brochure. The commentary, assumptions and findings are crude and highly questionable, there is no ability to critique the purported findings, and importantly, it is not peer-reviewed and thus not credible”, said Deb Kerr.
According to Victoria’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions Accounts, emissions from land use, land-use change, and forestry (which includes native harvesting) were -21.1Mt CO2-e in 2020 – nearly doubling the sector’s emission of -11.0MT CO2-e in 2005. It is the only sector across the economy that is and continues to be, a net carbon sink.
Source: Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning Victoria (DELWP)
“Victoria has cut emissions by almost 30% since 2005, and our native sector contributes to this. We don’t just harvest trees, we replant them. Younger trees absorb carbon much faster than older trees, which eventually start to release carbon,” Deb Kerr continued.
This is backed by a United Nations IPCC report stating that “in the long term, a sustainable forest management strategy aimed at maintaining or increasing forest carbon stocks, while producing an annual sustained yield of timber, fibre or energy from the forest, will generate the largest sustained mitigation benefit.”
“We see this as another attempt to discredit the only industry that uses a 100 per cent renewable material. Victorians should think critically about these spurious claims that are out of step with the internationally accepted science”, Ms Kerr concluded.
ENDS