An ANU study suggests that pristine forests can store three times as much carbon dioxide as plantation forests. However, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Kyoto Protocol don’t differentiate between the capacities of the two forest types, instead basing carbon storage capacities on plantation forest estimates.

The accepted definition of a forest in Australia also differs from that of the IPCC, leading to further underestimation of carbon capacity, particularly in southeast Australia’s 14.5 million hectares of eucalypt forests. The study said that these undisturbed forests can hold 9.3 billion tonnes of carbon – three times the IPCC’s estimates.

In addition, the study found that untouched forests store carbon for longer than plantation forests that were rotationally logged, and were ‘more resilient to climate change and disturbances’. Logging resulted in a 40 per cent reduction in long-term carbon capture.

The report advised that if southeast Australia’s eucalypt forests were left alone, it would be the equivalent of avoiding the emission of 460 million tonnes of CO2 a year for the next 100 years, while allowing logged forests to regrow to their natural carbon capacity would avert emission of 136 million tonnes a year over a similar period.

October 2008