Carbon-storing mallee getting the credits

Australian
Friday 5/9/2008 Page: 4

STANDING in drought-ravaged land where water is an obsession, Martin Crevatin admires a four year-old stand of healthy trees thriving against the odds. Despite four very dry years, the young trees are growing from strength to strength, and with them is flourishing one of the nation's largest schemes for storing carbon in plants. The stand of mallees at Coolamon near Wagga is in one of the plantations run by CO2 Group, which plants mallee trees and trades the credits for the carbon they sequester.

The company mostly plants blue-leaved malice and york gum. Mr Crevatin is optimistic the trees will survive any changes the climate might throw at them. "Their capacity to deal with harsh environmental conditions and still grow and survive, that is one of the big things in ensuring their survival into the long-term to keep the captured carbon within the trees," he said. CO2 Group chief executive officer Andrew Grant said the company was the biggest biosequestration group in Australia and possibly the world.

Biosequestration uses plants to draw carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and sequester, or store, the gas in plant material. It was with some frustration that Mr Grant welcomed the news the federal Government finally seems to have learned about the scheme, with its climate change adviser Ross Garnaut this week saying Australia was uniquely placed to use biosequestration. "I have been banging on about this for five years in every forum I can so I welcome it," Mr Grant said. "I think it is as plain as the nose on your face." He said mallees were particularly suited to biosequestration schemes, being native and used to dry local conditions.

They belong in this landscape; they are long-lived, they are tough, they handle climate variation and they are not palatable to stock," he said. "They don't require watering or irrigation when they are being established, and they are just fantastic at accumulating biomass and therefore sequestering carbon." Mr Grant began his career working for a government body that paid landholders to clear mallee in Victoria but today his company has 9000 hectares of mallee plantation on its books.

Most of the plantings are done in partnership with farmers and Mr Grant said they designed the plantations to ensure they were integrated into their farming operation. He said there were many benefits for the partner farmers, who were paid for the land.

"They are often involved in the works, in establishing the trees, and they get all the fringe benefits of having the trees on the property," he said. "(The mallee planting) provides shelter belts for stock, prevents soil erosion and improves the microclimate for their cropping operation. It has biodiversity benefits and improves the liveability of the property." The company's clients, who purchase carbon credits, include Qantas, Macquarie Bank, Woodside, Origin Energy and the Big Day Out.

The CEO of the National Association of Forest Industries, Allan Hansard, said Australia's forest industries could sequester about 81 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year by 2020, which is about 20 per cent of Australia's total carbon abatement task. "Forestry is the only industry in Australia that is carbon positive, meaning it sequesters more carbon than it emits," he said. "This puts forestry in the unique position of being able to take the burden off other industries."