Recognition that carbon barely decays in wood, nor releases significant methane, could substantially boost the value of commercial forests in NSW.

This is likely to be of significance to forest growers because of the link with carbon trading, said NSW Department of Primary Industries forestry scientist Dr Annette Cowie.

“Under current greenhouse accounting protocols, the long-term storage of carbon in wood products is not acknowledged.

“It was assumed that carbon in trees was oxidised in the year of harvest.

“However our research demonstrates that a significant proportion of the carbon in the trees remains permanently stored in wood products.”

Dr Cowie said that if wood products were included in carbon trading schemes, the penalty for harvest would decrease.

“The commercial returns to forest growers from carbon trading may be changed dramatically and the benefits for regional NSW would be enormous.

“Plantations established on a joint-venture basis with private growers may become eligible for trading if the long-term storage of carbon in wood products is officially recognised.

“This would provide a greater incentive for smaller growers to become involved.”

The research has already generated significant interest in Australia and overseas.

It has found that less than 3.5 per cent of the carbon originally held in the wood is lost through decomposition.

Another forests researcher, Fabiano Ximenes, said: “This is much lower than the current assumptions of 20 to 25 per cent, which are based on experiments conducted in the laboratory”.

Each year about 2.5 million tonnes of wood products are disposed of in landfills in Australia.

Contact Fabiano Ximenes or Annette Cowie, NSW DPI Forest Resources Research, (02) 9872 0143.

This story appears Agriculture Today.