no carbon rebate on plantations

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News Local News News General Timber Communities on carbon tax Timber Communities on carbon tax
28 Jul, 2011 09:10 AM
The timber industry came out in force at Tuesday night�s carbon tax forum at which Mike Kelly attempted to sell Julia Gillard�s Clean Energy Future, and Timber Communities Australia had a few subtly placed flyers spread around the room with a clear message: Forestry misses out in carbon announcement.
The flyer read:

�The Australian Government has acknowledged that forestry is a carbon positive industry and yet this has been largely ignored in the announcement on Australia�s Carbon Price Scheme.

Why does this announcement �stink� for regional timber communities?

1. Tree plantations are excluded from the carbon farming initiative, despite providing the greatest potential to soak up significant amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Australia still has a $2billion trade deficit in wood products, and needs to encourage plantation development and the associated regional jobs.

2. No renewable energy produced from native forest biomass - not even sawmill and chip mill waste - will be eligible for renewable energy credits. This announcement has jeopardised the SEFE bio energy project, which would have created renewable energy to offset coal fired power generation. What renewable technologies, apart from biomass, will deliver base load power?

3. The government has allocated almost AU$1billion funding for �forest protection projects� which could see well managed production forests locked-up and weeds, pests and wildfires allowed to flourish.