At face value, the amount of forest in Australia is officially increasing, and has been since 2008.<\/p>\n
But if an old-growth tree is felled in a forest and seedlings grow elsewhere, is the official account ecologically sound? Not according to new analysis, which suggests that the way Australia calculates forest cover obfuscates the impacts of ongoing deforestation.<\/p>\n
Australia calculates forest cover as a net figure, in which forest losses are \u201cnetted off\u201d against forest gains. That is problematic, according to a report led by Griffith University\u2019s Climate Action Beacon, because new forests do not store as much carbon or have the same wildlife benefits as established forests that are being destroyed.<\/p>\n
Prof Brendan Mackey of Griffith University, one of the study\u2019s co-authors, described measuring forest losses and gains in net terms as \u201can accounting sleight of hand\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to measure gross losses and gains, and collect much better information about what\u2019s been lost and the regeneration that\u2019s happened to assess whether we are meeting our global obligations to climate and ecosystems,\u201d he said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Australia is a signatory to the Glasgow leaders\u2019 declaration on forests and land use, made in 2021, which pledges to reverse forest loss and land degradation.<\/p>\n
Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n According to the federal government\u2019s latest state of the forests<\/a> report, published in 2023, \u201cAustralia\u2019s total forest area increased by 0.75 million ha \u2026 from 2016 to 2021, maintaining the increase in total forest area that has been observed since 2008\u201d.<\/p>\n But the new analysis suggests \u201cthere is considerable uncertainty about whether the reported net increase in forest area in Australia is real\u201d.<\/p>\n It suggests that the official dataset used to estimate increases in forest area tends to \u201coverreact\u201d, misclassifying areas as experiencing change when none has occurred.<\/p>\n The research, commissioned and funded by the Australian Conservation<\/a> Foundation (ACF), found that most forest destruction has occurred in species-rich forests while regrowth was mostly in drier regions with sparse vegetation, which are not comparable carbon sinks.<\/p>\n It estimates that clearing in intensive regions releases up to 120 times more greenhouse gas emissions per hectare than could be removed from the atmosphere via the thickening of existing vegetation where most forest gains have occurred.<\/p>\n \u201cIf mapped gains in forest area are not really new forests, just greening or thickening of existing wooded lands \u2026 then Australia\u2019s seemingly positive net increase in forest cover statistic may be hiding even more substantial losses to biodiversity and much higher greenhouse gas emissions than claimed,\u201d the report found.<\/p>\n The ACF\u2019s Nathaniel Pelle said Australia was unique among wealthy countries in its deforestation problem.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Breaking News Australia<\/p>\n Get the most important news as it breaks<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cNo other rich countries in the world destroy forests like Australia does,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Speaking from the Cop30 climate summate in Brazil, Pelle said: \u201cIt\u2019s pretty embarrassing, to be honest, that we are here as a prospective Cop president and have so far taken so little action.\u201d<\/p>\n The argument has long been that \u201cas long as forests are regrowing somewhere, and they\u2019re regrowing at a rate at which forests are being destroyed somewhere else, then it\u2019s all fine,\u201d Pelle said. \u201cClearly that\u2019s not true.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe know that to prevent extinctions \u2013 which is the commitment of the federal government \u2013 and we know that to achieve net zero emissions, we need to keep the old high-carbon-stock forests standing up.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s very important that, should we take the baton from Brazil and host the next Cop, that we do justice to the good work that Brazil has done,\u201d Pelle said.<\/p>\n In the two years since the leftwing leader Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva<\/a> returned as president, Brazil has halved deforestation<\/a> in the Amazon.<\/p>\n The federal Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry was contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At face value, the amount of forest in Australia is officially increasing, and has been since 2008. 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