2 July 2011

Australia's proposed Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI) will severely limit opportunities for commercial forest growers to make a real contribution to greenhouse gas abatement says the Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA).
A submission on the CFI lodged today by the  AFPA says the CFI unfairly and inappropriately restricts opportunities for commercial forestry to provide abatement by including key forestry activities in the 'Negative List'.

AFPA transitional CEO Allan Hansard said it was extremely disappointing that the country's only truly carbon positive industry sector would be virtually excluded from the initiative.

"This is a huge missed opportunity for the CFI to generate low-cost abatement. If allowed to participate meaningfully in the CFI, the forest industry could sequester an additional 12 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent by 2020, yet it has been almost fully excluded,” he said.

“The 'Negative List' is arbitrary, subjective and is not underpinned by due process, a legal framework, or even scientific evidence. It duplicates other areas of the law on policy issues that are unrelated to carbon abatement, such as water, fire and natural resource management. These matters are adequately and
appropriately dealt with in other legislative instruments and should not be regulated via the CFI.

“The government has bowed to pressure following spurious and unsubstantiated claims that trees will take over the landscape and has excluded commercial forestry from the CFI. Meanwhile, the government has claimed that the CFI will be good for forest growers.

“The bias against commercial forestry is so apparent that it is consciously misleading of the government to make such statements. It is also contrary to teh government's position in support of forestry activities as part of the international REDD+ initiative, further suggesting that domestic politics may have been allowed to distort science based solutions.

“AFPA looks forward to working with the government in the design of the carbon price mechanism so that the forest industry – Australia's only carbon positive sector – can reach its potential in removing carbon from the atmosphere.”

AFPA's submission is available here.

Source: AFPA media release