Joslyn van der Moolen - 3 December 2024
Joslyn van der Moolen presented to Council at the Public Access Session on 3 December 2024.
Stopping Logging will negate over half Eurobodalla Carbon Emissions re Eurobodalla Climate Action Plan 2022 - 2032 and Securing Mountain Bike Trail Tenure in State Forests
Welcome Mayor, Deputy Mayor and returning Councillors, staff and the public. Some of you will know I was the second Greens Candidate in the recent election and I congratulate Colleen Turner for being elected to continue the Greens legacy of previous Greens Councillors including outgoing Deputy Mayor Alison Worthington. I am speaking to you in my role as on the Coastwatchers Forest Working Group and Community Liaison for Friends of the Forest (Mogo).
I am sure by now you know that Mogo State forest to the north of the Moruya river between Mogendoura and North Moruya started being logged two weeks ago. This Mogo State Forest operation of 534 hectares is part of 110,000 hectares of public state forest in the Eurobodalla that covers 31% of our land mass. This beautiful tall spotted gum forest that is being logged is primarily east of Maulbrooks Rd up to the top of the mountain with RHA Fire Trail across to the Eurobodalla Archery Range.
I will address two key aspects that logging these forests, has to do with the Eurobodalla shire. The first is logging emissions in relation to the council’s Eurobodalla Climate Action Plan 2022 - 2032 (p11). The second is the need to secure tenure for the mountain bike trails that council has invested so these mountain bike trails are not closed for months or damaged by industrial logging machinery.
First the Climate Action Plan which shows that the total carbon emissions for the Eurobodalla shire (page 11) from Electricity, Transport, Waste, Agriculture and Gas in 2019/2020 (the same year as the Black Summer fires) were 396,000 tonnes. Page 11 also states that these figures exclude emissions from land use change and forestry.
So what happens if we include forestry figures? I am going to refer to two documents that I worked on with Zero SE that includes 350 Eurobodalla. The State Forest factsheet and Climate Action in Eurobodalla fact sheet. In these we used the same Snapshot figures council did for emission levels but for the year before which was 440,000 tonnes.
First lets talk about logging in the Eurobodalla Shire which has 106,462 hectares of state forest. This is 26% of the total 411,651 ha) of the Eden and Southern Regional Forest Agreement areas in southern NSW. The Frontier Economic Report Comparing the value of alternative uses of native forests in Southern NSWworked out the emissions from logging in southern NSW was 950,000 tonnes.
So since the Eurobodalla has a quarter of the forest being logged in southern NSW we are generating a quarter of these emissions. Twenty six per cent of the total emissions of 950,000 tonnes for southern NSW is 245,691 tonnes pa. So in 2018-2019 the Eurobodalla was generating 438,000 tonnes of annual emissions Electricity, Transport, Waste, Agriculture and Gas. Yet logging in the Eurobodalla is adding 245,691 tonnes pa. You can easily see that if we stop logging, over half of the Eurobodalla emissions from Electricity, Transport, Waste, Agriculture and Gas will be negated. This incredible result is also reflected in the Bega shire that has even more logging.
So now the second topic – the need to secure tenure for mountain bike trails in our state forests. Nature based tourism is our main economic driver with $16 m federal investment in Eurobodalla mountain bike trails attracting the prestigious international Sea Otter event in Mogo State Forest in October 2025.
Despite this infrastructure investment and event planning the state forest mountain bike trails are not protected from logging. We need to protect these state forests to safeguard this investment and provide certainty to the industry so these mountain bike trails are not logged in the future. Without protection these forests will be closed for months and months for logging and tracks damaged.
The Council’s Mogo Trails webpage shows the Mogo Trails project was made possible due to $5 million from the Australian and NSW Governments’ Bushfire Local Economic Recovery Fund and $3 million from the NSW Government’s Growing Local Economies Fund.
Yet despite this massive investment I do not see protected areas around the mountain bike trails. In state forests protected areas are called Preserved Forest Areas. Such an area has been allocated around the convict built Old Coach Road in Termeil leading to Big Spotty.
When Mogo State Forest at Dunns Creek was logged in 2018 Forestry put signs up saying track closed for nine months. The informal Joan of Arc trail and Vietnam trail maintained by volunteers were driven over by heavy industrial logging machinery. When the tracks opened the tracks along the creek had grown over for over a kilometre.
Managers of the mountain bike trails are key stakeholders and have the power to negotiate protection of the forests that has had mountain bike infrastructure investment. We a small volunteer group have secured a 10m buffer from logging on the bicentenary funded walking trail behind the Gold Rush colony. I call on council to demand that their investment in mountain biking be matched by Forestry Corporation NSW (a NSW Government entity) and be protected as a Forest Preserved area.
Our forests must be kept standing for biodiversity, as carbon storage and for eco-tourism our main industry. The forestry industry must focus 100% on plantations that are profitable, that already provide over 80% of construction timber and many skilled jobs and use less land. AKD softwoods in Tumut own 12,000 hectares on plantations that pay rates to local shires in Tumut and Oberon.
Joslyn van der Moolen
Secretary Coastwatchers and Forest Working Group member
Community Liaison Friends of the Forest (Mogo)
REFERENCES:
Frontier Economics & Macintosh, A (2021), p35 Comparing the value of alternative uses of native forests in Southern NSW
Eurobodalla Shire has 106,462 hectares of state forest (26% of the total 411,651 ha) of the Eden and Southern Regional Forest Agreement areas in southern NSW. Carbon abatement from stopping logging is equivalent to 56% of annual emissions from electricity, transport, waste, agriculture for the Eurobodalla shire. See Zero SE State Forest factsheet
Twenty six per cent of the total carbon abatement of 950,000 tonnes for southern NSW is 245,691 tonnes pa. 245,691 tonnes pa of avoided emissions will negate 56% of the 438,000 tonnes of annual emissions (2019 figures https://snapshotclimate.com.au/) (245,691/438,000 = 56%) from electricity, transport, waste, agriculture for the Eurobodalla shire.
Bega Shire has 140,490 hectares of state forest (34% of the total 411,651 ha) of the Eden and Southern Regional Forest Agreement areas in southern NSW. Carbon abatement from stopping logging, is equivalent to 66% of annual emissions in the shire.
Thirty four per cent of the total carbon abatement of 950,000 tonnes for Southern NSW is 324,197 tonnes pa, which would be equivalent to 66% of the annual 494,000 tonnes (2019 figures https://snapshotclimate.com.au/) of annual emissions (324,197/494,000 = 66%) from electricity, transport, waste, agriculture and gas for the Bega shire.
Shoalhaven Shire has 52,052 hectares of state forest (13% of the total 411,651 ha) of the Eden and Southern Regional Forest Agreement areas in southern NSW. Carbon abatement from stopping logging, is equivalent to 9% of annual emissions in the Shoalhaven.
14 Oct 2022 Stopping native forest logging is the only way to meet our net zero targets Canberra Times, Lindenmayer/Mackay Stopping Logging will save 15.3mt pa for 9 years and meet 43% reduction in GHG by 2030 below 2005 level…. there are many sources of emissions, only native forests can remove carbon at the scale and time required.
Lean Ending native forest logging and moving to 100% plantations would save 225 million tonnes of emissions from now (7 Aug 2023) until 2050.
NSW FOREST CARBON REPORT SUMMARY 2023 - The Tree Projects Research conducted for this report found that greenhouse gas emissions from native forest logging in New South Wales is approximately 3.6 million tonnes of carbon (CO2 e) per year. This shows that native forest logging in New South Wales is a significant source of emissions. It has the same annual emissions as 840,000 medium sized cars or is close to four and a half times the annual emissions of New South Wales’ domestic aviation. This figure is based on ‘short-term’ and ‘long-term’ emissions. Around 64% of a forest’s carbon is released within a few years of logging. Most of the wood removed from New South Wales’ forests goes into single-use products such as paper, which have a short lifespan. As much as 40% of the forest’s biomass is incinerated, which immediately emits carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxides in to the atmosphere. Long-lasting wood products such as sawn timber only represent about 4-8% of the forest’s carbon.
Around 30% of the forest’s biomass, mainly consisting of woody debris and stumps, gets left behind on-site after burning. This can take up to 50 years to break down and emit the stored carbon. Currently in New South Wales, forests containing 2.2 million tonnes of carbon (CO2 e) are logged each year. However, annual emissions are estimated to be higher due to the lag effects of waste breaking down on-site from decades-old logging when the rate of harvest was twice as high. When forests are logged, two-thirds of the carbon is released within two years. Some of these carbon dioxide emissions will be recovered as some native forests regrow after logging. However, it takes many decades to centuries for forests to capture lost carbon. We cannot wait decades to centuries.
We need to reduce emissions now to prevent catastrophic climate change. Protecting New South Wales’ native forests is a real climate solution. If native forests currently managed for logging were protected, we could prevent 76 million tonnes of carbon (CO2 e) from entering the atmosphere by 2050. This could provide close to $2.7 billion in benefit to help mitigate climate change. Our smartest choice would be to protect New South Wales’ native forests - this will prevent significant emissions and allow forests to continue to draw carbon down from the atmosphere.