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Business View Australia - January-February 2016 137
TURING
in excess of 2.2 billion tonnes of se-
questered carbon. Between 2005
and 2010, 16 million tonnes of car-
bon were sequestered by working
forests, while the carbon stored in
harvested wood products increased
by 6 million tonnes in the same pe-
riod.
It is interesting to note that the
carbon storage capacity of working
forests is increasing while that of
non-production forest areas, such as
national parks, is declining. The pe-
riod from 2005 to 2010 saw the to-
tal carbon stored in this category of
forests decline by 13 million tonnes
to about 10.6 billion tonnes.
This reduction is due to the passive
management techniques used in
these forests and to the occurrence
of bushfires that can lead to large
amounts of emissions. The manu-
facture of paper and wood products
is beneficial for the environment as
it encourages the growth of forests
which are large repositories of car-
bon.
The use of wood from forests as a
construction material and as a raw
material for the manufacture of pa-
per is beneficial in many ways. Chief
Executive Officer of AFPA, Ross
Hampton says, “The world needs
more, not less, of this sustainable,
renewable and truly green resource.
And it needs more of it from Austral-
ia.
“Although we have just experi-