Queensland's new land-clearing laws are a huge missed opportunity.
The carbon farming initiative gives pig farmers the opportunity to earn carbon credits for reducing methane emissions from manure. The proposed change to this government policy may stall, or even end, this market.
Alan Skerman/AAP
Proposed changes to the government's climate change policies may stall, or even close down, the market for 'carbon farmers' to profit from reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
Farming land in New South Wales.
from www.shutterstock.com
Growing population, growing demand for food, climate change: Australia's rural lands are facing a number of pressures. So how can we sustainably use them in the future?
Australia will struggle to make real emissions reductions without making structural change away from coal in the energy sector.
Daniel L Smith / Shutterstock.com
The GFC killed off Australia's timber plantation boom, leaving behind a million hectares of timber. But by recognising the carbon value in these trees, a new industry could grow in place of the old.
The latest climate talks in Bonn, Germany, unexpectedly agreed to a mechanism for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation.
CIFOR/Flickr
The mid year Bonn negotiations for the proposed new global agreement to tackle climate change have just concluded. They will be finalised at the end of the year in Paris. What progress is being made? What are the challenging issues that may end up being a focus of negotiations in Paris? What does the roadmap from here look like?
Growth industry: forestry will account for much of the carbon reductions under the first round of Emissions Reduction Fund contracts.
CSIRO/Wikimedia Commons
The first round of contracts for Australia's Emissions Reduction Fund have been awarded, at an average price of just under A$14 a tonne. How do the numbers stack up, and what projects are the big winners?
Mangroves are still be cleared for aquaculture expansion. Since 1989, 6600 hectares of Tanjung Panjang Nature Reserve’s original 13,300 ha of mangroves have been converted.
Iona Soulsby
Mangroves, hectare for hectare, store more carbon than any other forests. But they are also among the most threatened. New projects in Indonesia show how mangroves might be restored.
Koalas are one of the threatened species that could benefit from carbon farming.
christopher charles/Flickr
Should we pick and choose our climate strategies based on how water-wise they are? As our new research published in Climatic Change shows, some activities aimed at tackling greenhouse emissions can also…
A property in South Australia’s Clare Valley, where the farmer has planted hundreds of gum trees.
David Clarke/Flickr
Australian farmers and rural land owners are being told that they will be given powerful and direct incentives to store carbon in the land under the federal government’s new climate policy. But is that…
The path to climate change resilience is better land management.
Flickr/jennifrog
Australia could lead the world in combating climate change. Wouldn’t you like to believe this was true? Actually though, Australia has a world-beating model to deal with climate change. But I’m not talking…
The government and the Coalition both want to manage land to reduce greenhouse emissions. But it’s not working.
Flickr/Indigo Skies Photography
Australia’s two major parties have promised to reduce the country’s emissions by 5% by 2020, with two different approaches. Labor has used carbon farming as part of its approach; the Coalition is making…
Financially, using the NSW Southern Forestry Region for carbon credits is a better option than continued harvesting.
Flickr/Tony Rodd
In debates about climate change and the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, there is a widely-held belief that market mechanisms, like the Labor government’s carbon pricing scheme, will reduce emissions…
Australia’s southern coastal wetlands are more diverse than most people realise. In a recent paper, Paul Boon suggests they provide valuable ecological services that exceed those of inland wetland ecosystems…
Our national parks are full of forests - we could be claiming carbon credits for managing them better.
Tatiana Gerus
The Australian Government has recently committed to a second round of the Kyoto Protocol to run from 2013-2020. In doing so, Australia is required to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 5…
Dairy farmers will be able to claim carbon credits if they feed their cows right.
Eli Duke
The Carbon Farming Initiative is about to provide incentives for dairy farmers to reduce emissions from their milking cows. Emissions will be reduced by changing the cows’ diet. The proposed new methodology…
An early season burn in Arnhem Land. Low intensity fires decrease greenhouse emissions and increase carbon stored in trees. Brett Murphy.
Fire and biodiversity have a complex relationship in northern Australia. Tim Flannery and others blame the current northern biodiversity crisis, at least in part, on changed fire regimes. Improving fire…
Methane-capture technology in Grantham, Queensland, could earn carbon credits through Australia’s Carbon Farming Initiative.
AAP/Alan Skerman
Today, nearly 1.3 billion people – almost a fifth of the world’s population - live on “fragile” agricultural land. Just one-third of the rural poor in developing countries live on productive agricultural…