Carbon Forestry: A Cautionary Note
By Roger Underwood
from The Forestry Source, January 2010. © Society of American Foresters
My position regarding global warming and climate change, and their impact on forestry is simple: it is one of fairly certain uncertainty.
On the one hand I accept that the world is gradually becoming warmer, as we continue to emerge from the last ice age. This might lead to a rise in average temperature in Australia of a couple of degrees over the next 100 years, probably through an increase in minimum, rather than of maximum temperatures. And I accept that many parts of Australia at the moment are experiencing prolonged drought, or periods of below-average rainfall, but I cannot tell yet whether these are due to global warming or are just natural climatic cycles.
On the other hand I have seen no convincing evidence that global warming is caused by human emissions of CO2. And even if this hypothesis is true, the idea that Australian (or American) foresters can fix the problem by planting trees is ambitious to the point of fantasy. The extent of tree planting needed to counteract the CO2 emissions from Australia alone could never be accomplished without an enormous impact on the high rainfall land-base, which in turn would have a dramatic impact on food production. Besides, the Australian contribution to the world’s carbon emissions is tiny; surely we foresters would be kidding ourselves if we think anything we do will make a difference on a global scale (other than as a symbolic gesture).
I am also puzzled by the view that increased temperatures will lead to reduced rainfall. Across geological time the reverse has always been the case, with the driest climates being associated with the times of coolest temperatures.
Nevertheless, I acknowledge the current political and media hysteria about climate change. It has taken on a life of its own. The situation is made worse by the fact that the world’s smart moneymen see the thing as a business opportunity, a way to get richer. Banks and financial institutions are not just capitalising on global warming hysteria, they are promoting it. Others also have their snouts deep in the trough. Australian academics love global warming—not only is it a source of very large research grants, it is a heaven-sent opportunity for some of them to drive the final nail into the coffin of the native forest timber industry.
I take all this on board. It is another card which foresters have been dealt, and therefore one that we must play. I also see a positive: carbon sequestration dollars will finance new forests, and I support the development of new forests, especially those in the lower rainfall zones of agricultural Australia.
Therefore I do not criticise Australian or American foresters who are chasing the Carbon Goose that promises to lay a Golden Egg. But I alert them to two important risks:
1. Sooner or later, the carbon bubble will burst. A group of scientists somewhere, funded neither by the fossil fuel industry nor by the Wilderness Society, will demonstrate that enhanced carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere have an insignificant effect on climate. Other factors will emerge which explain climate change with far greater scientific credibility.
Unfortunately such research is unlikely to be accepted in the short term. Too many political, academic, scientific and media reputations have been harnessed to the carbon wagon, too many dollars invested in phony alarmism. Nevertheless, the forestry profession must recognise that the science underpinning “carbon-pollution” (as it is now referred to by Australian politicians) is flimsy in the extreme, and is contested by many expert and experienced scientists.
2. Foresters will be employed to provide credibility to carbon forestry investment schemes designed by non-foresters, notably lawyers and accountants. I have seen many forestry investment schemes over the years. As in most human endeavours, there are good schemes and bad ones. What I dislike most about the bad ones, is that their objective is to make money for the scheme promoters, not for the investors; nor do benefits to the environment figure highly in the promoters’ inner thoughts. If good forestry outcomes arise, they are an incidental by-product. I have also seen forestry schemes designed by environmentalists and the forestry profession needs to beware of these as well. Some environmentalists are just as unscrupulous as any crooked lawyer or accountant, because they also subscribe to the philosophy that the ends justify the means. I have observed foresters caught up in poorly-designed and ill-managed forestry schemes who believe that they can put the promoters on the straight and narrow path. The far-more usual result is that the forester becomes collateral damage when the scheme implodes.
When I was a young forester I was taught the principles of good forestry by the famous Australian forester Max “Doc” Jacobs and other mentors who themselves had been mentored by the Doc. They preached three great principles of forestry: (i) secure forest tenure, to ensure forest management objectives can be achieved over long time periods; (ii) regeneration of the forest after disturbance such as timber harvest, to ensure permanence of forest ecosystems; and (iii) protection of the forest from injurious agencies, especially fire. To these can be added a new mantra aimed at modern plantation forestry: (iv) the right species for the site; (v) management for fire, nutrition, pests and disease; and (vi) research and monitoring to provide continuous improvement and feedback on actual outcomes.
I urge foresters to remember these principles and apply them religiously if they become involved in carbon sequestration forestry schemes. This will minimise the risk of golden egg yolk on the professional face.
Finally, I urge foresters to oppose single-purpose forestry, the so-called “conservation plantations”, so beloved of environmentalists and academics. Quite frankly, I find the concept of growing tree plantations for the sole purpose of providing a carbon sink to be ridiculous and an insult to our profession and to the community. These conservation plantations are both an illusion and a contradiction. In the first place they are based on the assumption that forests in Australia do not suffer bushfires. Secondly, the concept ignores the fact that timber harvested from sustainably-managed plantations provides an industrial substitute for steel, aluminium and concrete, all of which are environmentally unfriendly in every respect, including the massive outpouring of carbon dioxide during their manufacture, the priority worry of those concerned about global warming.
No forester should need to be reminded that well-managed forests can provide a full range of benefits — everything from timber to catchment protection, to biodiversity, to recreation and carbon capture. But it is not enough to just know this. We should be standing up and fighting for it, not meekly allowing the moneymen, academics and environmentalists who are taking the community down a primrose path with their concept of single-use ‘conservation plantations’.
There are opportunities as well as risks to the profession in the new ‘carbon forestry’ schemes. To minimise the risks, foresters must see themselves neither as blockers nor boosters, but as “professional opportunists”, capitalising on new funding opportunities to expand the forest estate, but trying to ensure the work is done properly, according to well-tried forestry principles. Our aim should be to ensure that in years to come the profession will be looked back upon as people who could see the big picture of multiple use forestry, and were not seduced by the siren call of easy money based upon half-baked science.
Roger Underwood is a Fellow of the Institute of Foresters of Australia, the 2008 N.W. Jolly Medallist, and a former district, regional, and research forester in Western Australia. These thoughts were presented to a conference at Caloundra, Queensland, in September 2009 organised by the Institute.
