The US West – suffering one of the most damaging wildfire seasons this decade – needs to break with current practices to avert more costly and dangerous wildfires in the future.
The Renewable Energy Target now includes wood waste from forestry. But a more sustainable use of Australia’s native forests would be to leave them alone and earn carbon credits from the avoided emissions.
The outcry over the government’s plan to allow wood burning from native forests under the revamped Renewable Energy Target belies the fact that woodchips can be useful and sustainable if harvested responsibly.
James Whitmore, The Conversation; Michael Hopkin, The Conversation, and Emil Jeyaratnam, The Conversation
The first round of contracts for Australia’s Emissions Reduction Fund have been awarded, at an average price of just under A$14 a tonne. How do the numbers stack up, and what projects are the big winners?
The Leadbeater’s has been formally listed as critically endangered. But unless clearfelling in the possums’ stronghold stops, it will continue down the road of extinction.
The 20-year-old agreements that are supposed to safeguard much of Australia’s forests, are not working. Now they are up for renewal, and it’s time for a complete rethink, writes David Lindenmayer.
The Workplaces (Protection from Protesters) Bill – locally known as the “anti-protest” bill – was passed by Tasmanian parliament late on Tuesday night. The law was introduced as part of the government’s…
Whoever wins power in Victoria’s election tomorrow will no doubt have a long to-do list. Here’s an urgent item: protect the mountain ash forests of the state’s Central Highlands. We have discovered that…
Indonesia, one of the biggest forest destroyers in the world, is merging the country’s environment and forestry ministries, to the alarm of some local activists. Activist are concerned that the merger…
Tasmania’s government has repealed the state’s forestry “peace deal”, removing around 400,000 hectares of forests from reserves across the state and potentially leaving them open to future logging. The…
Should we pick and choose our climate strategies based on how water-wise they are? As our new research published in Climatic Change shows, some activities aimed at tackling greenhouse emissions can also…
Tom Fairman, The University of Melbourne and Rod Keenan, The University of Melbourne
The 74,000 hectares of Tasmania’s controversial World Heritage extension will not be delisted as requested by the Tasmanian and federal governments. At the meeting of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee…
Although it may seem counter-intuitive, it would be better if we built buildings from wood than from concrete, brick, aluminium and steel. We use millions of tonnes of these modern materials every year…
The debate around Tasmania’s controversial World Heritage extension, under review this week at international talks in Doha, has centred on forests. But the area includes far more than “just” trees — including…
From reef dredging, to shark culling, to opening old-growth forests to logging, environmental policies are leaving Australia’s wildlife exposed to threats. The reason, we propose, is that society and government…
Three years ago, government plans to privatise the forests met with strong opposition from community groups and NGOs. But there have been calls for change – among others the Woodland Trust has called for…