President of Greening Australia appointed

Environmentalist Rob Gell has been appointed to the role of national president of Greening Australia with the mandate to drive the organisation’s strategic response to rapid climate change.

“There is incredible pressure on the world to face up to climate change and Australia cannot afford to wait while the rest of the world drags its feet to put in place policies and schemes to reduce current emissions," Gell said.

“Greening Australia is actively addressing climate change by creating a biosequestration product which can be sold under the government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. As proven technology, biosequestration will be an important contributor to the national effort, while enabling Australia to take a lead role internationally in addressing climate change.”

The recent Garnaut Report recognised the role that biosequestration can play in reducing carbon emissions and the importance of native forest sinks.

“Biodiverse forest carbon sinks have the capacity to deliver both mitigation and adaptation, because they are most capable of adapting to climate change, including hotter temperatures, lower and more variable rainfall, and more frequent fires, and so represent a relatively low environmental and financial investment risk,” said Gell.

Gell stated that the rapidly growing national and international market for carbon emission abatement creates an opportunity to attract large financial investment for biodiversity-focused landscape restoration in Australia by providing carbon sequestration credits as an attractive and low-risk return on capital.

Greening Australia is in the process of establishing a number of large-scale carbon sinks that will improve biodiversity and protect key landscapes at risk in the face of climate change, including Gondwana Link in south-western Australia.

The biodiverse plantings from these projects are proving effective at sequestering carbon, a tool in offsetting greenhouse-gas emissions. By applying the proven process of photosynthesis, Greening Australia is able to capture atmospheric CO₂ and store it in long-lived native woodland and forest systems.

“Greening Australia’s interest in carbon sinks is quite straightforward,” said Gell.

“The creation of a carbon market worth potentially billions of dollars can be leveraged to fast track existing efforts to halt and reverse the degradation of Australia’s environmental assets.”

Greening Australia’s strategic response to rapid climate change is to offer a carbon sequestration product that delivers multiple environmental benefits, most notably biodiversity restoration, improved river health, ecosystem resilience and sustainability benefits, in addition to CO₂ abatement.

“We are already using purchased land at Gondwana Link to offset carbon through our premium carbon offset program Breathe Easy,” said Gell.

“High carbon producers required to offset emissions under the Australian government’s proposed scheme now have the opportunity to choose an offset provider that maximises environmental returns in the face of climate change while meeting their carbon credit requirements.”