According to Markets For Change there is significant risk in establishing native forest-based bioenergy projects to substitute for Australia’s ailing woodchip export trade, including adverse climate impacts, according to a new report by environment group Markets For Change.
This new report by Markets For Change was released to coincide with industry conference Residues to Revenues, questions the push to use wood to produce electricity and liquid fuels.
It says such a move would involve loss of carbon stores that would likely take decades or even centuries to recover.
The report authors suggest biomass extraction for bioenergy will be the same as woodchipping, an enabler and driver of continued native forest logging, and just as contentious.
“Woodchipping has been deeply unpopular as it has underpinned the assault of industrial logging on Australia’s beautiful native forests, and it will be the same with plans to continue broad scale logging to feed the bulk of the felled wood into electricity or liquid biofuel production,” CEO of Markets For Change, Peg Putt, said.
“Logging and burning forests destroys wildlife habitat and releases massive greenhouse gas emissions that exacerbate global warming.”
“This report scuttles the claim that native forest bioenergy projects would merely use waste, the research also revealing that they are risky developments dependent on public subsidies.”
