Australian Greens' climate change spokesperson, Senator Christine Milne, today commended the Rudd Government's stated commitment to helping protect the carbon in Papua New Guinea's forests, but said the story is exactly the same for Australia's native forests and continued inaction is inexcusable.

"I was pleased to hear Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith, say from PNG on radio this morning that accurate accounting of forest carbon must be a priority as we move towards emissions' trading.

"Mr Smith said, 'We're working very closely with Papua New Guinea on climate change issues and a lot of that is because of the vast tracts of forest that Papua New Guinea has…'[1]"

"Well, we can insert 'Tasmania' or 'Victoria' for Papua New Guinea.  The protection of PNG's carbon rich forests from logging and burning makes complete sense, but it is plainly ridiculous to focus all our efforts to Australia's north when here at home the release of stored carbon from native forests continues apace.

"Today, all of Tasmania is blanketed by a thick smoke haze from forestry burns.  Every day, thousands of tonnes of bankable carbon is being felled and torched in our forests.  This is a climate crime because once this carbon is lost it takes hundreds of years for it to be recaptured in a regrowing forest.

"If it is to have any credibility on climate change, the Rudd Government must immediately move to end the substantial and unjustifiable release of stored carbon from Australia's carbon-sink forests, particularly in Tasmania, Victoria and south-east NSW.

"In his media interview this morning, Mr Smith was clearly not across significant developments in the way forest carbon is measured.   It is already possible for Australia to measure forest carbon much more accurately than we do at present, but it hasn't been a Federal Government or logging industry priority to know the carbon facts.

"Forest accounting methodologies are improving all the time.  It appears inevitable that  industrialised nations will explicitly account for carbon losses and gains from the forestry sector in the next commitment period, post-Kyoto in 2012.   This will create a significant financial incentive to reduce logging, especially in mature, carbon rich forests, and to maximise regrowth.

"Australia will be obliged to adopt a dramatically new approach to how its own forests are managed," Senator Milne said.

[1] Interview with Radio National Breakfast, Steve Cannane. 7.40 am, 24 April 2008 http://www.abc.net.au/rn/breakfast/