Harvested forests provide the greatest ongoing greenhouse gas benefits. Does current Australian policy support optimal greenhouse gas mitigation outcomes?

Australia is acting to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions principally through the recent introduction, to the Federal Parliament, of the Clean Energy Future Legislative Package. Whilst these initiatives are a positive development in addressing climate change concerns, the package ignores the opportunity for multiple use production forests to contribute to low cost greenhouse gas (GHG) abatement. The policy being developed and enacted through the Federal Parliament does not recognise the nature of carbon (C) flows in multiple use production forests and hence does not account for their role in GHG mitigation. The case studies in this paper illustrate key aspects of GHG outcomes for managed multiple use production forests and conservation forests. These study areas are representative of New South Wales (NSW) production forests. They account for approximately 50% of native forest logs harvested in NSW.