Carbon storage industries will create rural jobs, Senate told

Australia’s universities can help state governments identify carbon storage management industries to replace logging of native forests for woodchips and shipping pallets, a leading environmental scientist has told a Senate inquiry.

David Lindenmayer, a landscape ecologist at the Australian National University in Canberra, says logging native forests has “major negative impacts on water security and on biodiversity, leads to substantial carbon emissions and elevates fire risks”.

In his submission to a Senate inquiry into future employment in regional areas, Lindenmayer says traditional forestry jobs are declining and could be replaced by carbon storage management and sustainable tourism ventures such as hiking, bushwalking and birdwatching.