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    The myths of forestry as a counter to global warming. Archived Message

    Posted by John Monro on July 8, 2019, 1:44 am

    I'm impelled to write after reading this article in the Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/07/the-wrong-kind-of-trees-irelands-afforestation-meets-resistance

    The major complaint is of course the extensive monoculture of a single tree species in what are basically commercial woodlots or forestry blocks, and their doleful effect on the appearance of the countryside and their less than favourable effect on native wildlife.



    Residents and campaigners say fast-growing Sitka spruces are spoiling the landscape
    says the byline.
    Ireland is ramping up its response to the climate crisis by planting forests – lots of forests. East, west, north, south, the plan is to plant forests, the more the better.

    With enough trees, goes the hope, Ireland can compensate for many of the cows, vehicles and fossil-burning power plants that make it one of Europe’s worst climate offenders.

    The article goes on to mention various "tax breaks" by which you know that there's something crooked going on.

    It's the same in NZ, a monoculture of radiata pine, which grows quickly in NZ and can be harvested within 25 to 30 years. Again, tax breaks and fraudulent "hot air" carbon credits are all part of the profit made by the companies involved (NZ's extensive and very valuable forests - originally planted at government expense, starting in the 1930s as make work schemes)- were all privatised in the 1980s, and most are now owned by overseas interests.

    But the basic problem is the lie that is the statement "With enough trees, goes the hope, Ireland can compensate for many of the cows, vehicles and fossil-burning power plants that make it one of Europe’s worst climate offenders." Plantation forestry, ulimtately, does absolutely nothing to help with climate change, for two reasons. First the disturbance of the ground in planting and harvesting , along with the energy burned to do this, is actually contributing to CO2 emissions, and secondly most of this harvested timber will in a fairly short time, return to to the atmosphere. In addition, the planting of exotic species in the wrong habitats, as in Ireland, NZ and the USA, can actually worsen global warming and fire risks.

    This long and detailed article relates to the NZ experience and the fraudulent activities related to carbon credits and forestry - NZ is a "pariah nation" in this context, nothing "Clean and Green" here.

    https://www.productivity.govt.nz/sites/default/files/sub-low-emissions-27-david-evison-and-euan-mason-477Kb.pdf

    We see articles such as this

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/04/planting-billions-trees-best-tackle-climate-crisis-scientists-canopy-emissions

    which suggests vast reforestation would go a long way to helping us solve the climate change emergency.

    This National Geographic article gives a more nuanced account:

    https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/04/how-to-regrow-forest-right-way-minimize-fire-water-use/

    But in all these re-forestation initiatives, we should be relying solely on permanent forests native to the region to sequester the carbon. Ireland, planting Sitka Spruce, and NZ, planting Pinus Radiata, are basically contributing nothing to ameliorating global warming, because all this forest will be felled. There are a lot of greedy people out there for whom forestry is a profit-driven exercise and for whom playing around with carbon credits is part of the profitable game.

    NZ again provides a perfect example of the pitfalls of simplistic thinking allied to commercial greed. In 1987 just after the Monro family arrived in NZ. there was a major cyclone that hit the North Island, and particularly the East Cape area. This deeply dissected country with shallow soils was denuded of its forest in the 1800s and early 1900s by burning and felling to make way for extensive sheep and cattle farming - an environmental vandalism repeated throughout the country. Cyclone Bola dumped, In places, more than 900 mm of rain in 72 hours, and one area had 514 mm in a single day. The consequence was massive flooding but in particular the loss of vast amounts of soil



    This dramatic picture illustrates this in a frightening way. As a consequence of this, it was determined that there should be a replanting of much of this eroded landscape in forestry. The programme was commenced but advanced slowly - indeed after thirty years is still not completed - by far the majority of the planting in radiata pine.

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/102228269/forestry-meets-farmland--30-years-on-from-cyclone-bola

    But in 2018 another flood brought this result



    So despite this past history of major flooding disaster in the same area just 30 years ago, these exotic plantations are now at their age for harvesting and this is the result. Huge amounts of timber debris left in the catchment following logging were already a concern before these new floods. So all these soils, supposedly protected by government subsidised planting, are now as vulnerable as they were before Bola. This is the reality of "Clean Green NZ"

    So it's the same with commercial exotic forestry as a counter to global warming. The same political expedience, the same anti-scientific policies, the same greed, the same lack of accountability.

    This article provides some further discussion of this matter:

    https://theconversation.com/the-scandal-of-calling-plantations-forest-restoration-is-putting-climate-targets-at-risk-114858

    An illustration of the difference between regenerating native forestry and plantation forestry on a planetary scale



    NZ is now led by a nice PM who said when she became leader of the party "Global warming is my generation's nuclear-free issue" and her government plans to plant 1 billion trees - with the honourable intention that two thirds of this will be native. The problem is that in the first year of this programme, 91 million trees were planted, of which only 12 percent were native. The other matter we don't know is how much of this forest would have been planted in any case, for instance replantation of harvested forest. Jim Salinger, climate scientist and contributor to the IPCC, just this morning was commenting on this government's efforts. The defensive reaction of politicians comes well to the fore.

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/393832/one-billion-tree-plan-flawed-says-climate-scientist

    (Dr Jim Salinger is NZ's most well renowned climate scientist. He was sacked from his government job a few years ago because he spoke out about the failure of government policies in dealing with climate change)

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