Through a process of photosynthesis, trees absorb (sequester) carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, releasing oxygen and storing the carbon in growth.
Tree crops or other vegetation on agricultural land not only sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, they also soak up excess water from the water table, protect soils on adjoining land from wind erosion, provide habitat and linkages for wildlife and help to protect important wetlands and areas of remnant native ecosystems. It is not often that a single management action can produce so many environmental and practical benefits.
In the late 1980s, the department pioneered sharefarming, a partnership between a tree grower and a land owner. The success of the department’s bluegum sharefarming scheme has created the conditions for private investment on a huge scale. Western Australia is now leading the nation in plantation establishment - more than 120,000 hectares of tree crops have been established by the department and the private sector in the last 12 years. This rate of farmland afforestation is unprecedented in Australia.
Our challenge is now to extend similar benefits to the medium (400-600mm per year) and low (<400mm per year) rainfall zones of Western Australia's Wheatbelt region. Maritime pine and mallee eucalypts grow well in these zones, providing opportunities for new industries in rural areas as well as greenhouse and other environmental benefits.
Given the lower productivity likely in lower rainfall parts of the south-west, the potential income from carbon emissions trading may be the key to viability of our new tree crop ventures.
However, DEC estimates that 600,000 hectares of maritime pine planted in the medium rainfall zone over the next 30 years could sequester as much as 180 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Western Australia is an ideal zone for plantation carbon investment. Political stability and the extensive nature of land use and afforestation expertise offers a low-cost, low-risk option for sequestering carbon. More importantly, landowners have acknowledged the need for afforestation to allow sustainable farming.
