DEAR News Of The Area,

WORLD-renowned Zurich-based scientist and ecologist Tom Crowther has recently been featured on ABC Television in an outstanding and revealing documentary “The Forest”.

It tells the story of over two hundred collaborating scientists, a massive database, and a five-year project to understand the true potential of Earth’s forested ecosystems to capture and hold human induced atmospheric carbon.

The study indicates that a staggering 226,000,000,000 (226 billion) tonnes of carbon could be captured and held by all forests around the planet, if they were encouraged by us and allowed to simply grow, and grow back.

NSW Forestry Corporation is aware of this, but just keeps on clear-felling our forests back down to dirt.

We understand that the long-lived practices of logging and agricultural expansion are entrenched within our communities, but to ignore the science, and the voice of the public, is to play a sort of Russian roulette with our future.

In the documentary, Australian Professor David Lindenmayer, a world-leading expert in forest ecology and biodiversity conservation says: “We need to focus our wood productions on plantations.

We need to manage our forests for carbon storage, for water production, for tourism, for biodiversity. All of those key things because in fact, those things are worth more to the economy than turning our forests into wood chips and paper-pulp, which is primarily what happens in Australian native forests.” “

Ecosystems” is not a word that only “Greenies” use.

It is a scientific descriptor that represents an interconnected system of living things.

If you missed “The Forest” it is well worth seeing on ABC iView.

Regards,
Mark MERRITT,
Yarrahapinni.