Perin Davey (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Guardian is reporting today that international charity Oxfam has warned that reforestation , or a f forestation , as a mechanism to tackle climate change risks global food security and will drive up food prices, particularly in developing nations. The report, Tightening the net: the implications of net zero climate targets for land and food equity , says planting even a fraction of the area needed to offset global greenhouse gas emissions would encroach on land needed to grow crops to feed a growing population. According to Nafkote Dabi, the climate policy lead at Oxfam, it is difficult to tell how much land would be required for offsets, as governments have not been transparent in how they will meet net zero targets.

This is the point that the Nationals have been trying to make. We need to understand how we're going to achieve net zero without unintended consequences. We need to understand the methodology of the accounting. I n Australia w e've already seen agricultural land locked up as native vegetation tracts to meet emissions reduction targets. Meanwhile, this ignores the crucial role that Australian agriculture and forestry can play in helping us as a nation to sequester carbon and reduce e missions. The Oxfam analysis found that nature based solutions that focused on managed forestry, agroforestry, pasture and soil management and crop lands are better options to allow people to produce food while sequestering carbon.

When we talk climate change in agriculture, we must acknowledge the hard lifting that our farmers have done and are doing. The meat industry has done extensive research on reducing emissions from livestock by changing diets. The pork industry has world-leading examples of methane-to-power conversion. Every commodity is looking at ways to do their bit. So , too , our forestry industry should be applauded rather than lambasted. Today, the taxpayer funded New South Wales Environmental Defenders Office have announced they're taking the forestry industry in New South Wales to court to argue agains t regional forestry agreements.

It is well known that trees absorb carbon, particularly in the earlier growth phases. By harvesting that timber, you capture that carbon. By using that timber for wood products, furniture, timber housing frames and the like, you capture that carbon forever. The alternative, to plant a tree and walk away, doesn't give you the opportunity to replant, regenerate and restart the cycle. Planting trees and walking away only captures carbon to a point. The trees absorb carbon during their younger years, plateau later in life and then, later still, start to release carbon. And the land is locked up for good. It doesn't produce anything that helps humankind so far as food and fibre. The Australian forest industry has over 125 million hectares under plantation at the moment. That makes us the world's seventh-largest forested nation. But only 78,000 hectares, or 0.06 per cent, is harvested for timber production in any one year. That leaves the rest of it all there absorbing carbon. But, instead of celebrating this sustainable green industry, the Greens and others want to curtail it, just like they do with our agriculture.

Regarding the EDO case in New South Wales, the Federal Court has already sensibly rejected similar claims in Tasmania and Victoria. But these constant legal challenges, this environmental lawfare, are costing the industry billions and diverting attention away from having them improve practices and increase sustainability. We have to stop this lawfare. We've got to stop branding our farmers and foresters as environmental vandals and embrace the vital role they will play in both helping us meet our emissions reduction targets and feeding our nation and the world. We need to give our businesses and farmers longer-term certainty. We need to back our industries, back the families that work in forestry, back our farmers and back our communities.