Man fined after ramming tree, poking koala

A former country Victorian teenager has been convicted and fined $2800 after he repeatedly rammed his car into a tree to try and dislodge a koala.

A court heard today that Brett Grant Seabrook, 19, had earlier found the koala at the base of a tree near his campsite in the Barmah State Park in northern Victoria.

Echuca Magistrates Court was told that Seabrook wrapped the marsupial in a blanket and released it in a tree at the campsite on March 22 this year.

Wildlife officer Greg Chant, prosecuting for the Department of Sustainability and Environment, said when the koala began to make a loud noise, Seabrook tried to retrieve it by poking it with a stick.

Mr Chant said Seabrook then rammed the tree with his Toyota Landcruiser utility, which was witnessed by a number of nearby campers who alerted authorities.

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The painting is by Laura Tasheiko

Queensland tree-clearing 'wiping out animals'

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) says forest clearing in Queensland is wiping out tens of millions of animals and driving threatened wildlife to the brink of extinction.

WWF said the annual Statewide Landcover and Trees Study (SLATS) reveals 375,000 hectares of bush were cleared in 2005-06, killing two million mammals, about 9,000 koalas and millions of birds and reptiles.

The group is calling for a clearing moratorium to protect the state's unique wildlife from habitat loss and further destruction and to help combat climate change.

"This amount of clearing is unacceptable to the Australian public," said WWF Queensland program leader Nick Heath. "It's a huge blow for our wildlife, our climate, our rivers and reefs.

"The animals that are wiped out suffer horribly as they are burnt or starved to death.

"In order to function properly, our ecosystems depend greatly on all the plants and animals that are lost.

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The painting is by Laura Tasheiko

Govt plans Traveston tree planting

The Queensland Government is aiming to plant up to two million forestry trees as part of the construction of the proposed Traveston Crossing dam near Gympie in the state's south-east.

The Government is this week calling for expressions of interest from forestry plantation operators to grow the trees.

Speaking in Parliament yesterday, Infrastructure Minister Paul Lucas said the proposed plantation would cover more than 2,000 hectares.

"Not only will the forest initiative revitalise the Mary Valley timber industry, the offsets of up to 850,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions will more than offset the dam's estimated 140 tonne construction footprint," he said.

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Carbon huddles deep in the forest

Australia's old-growth forests can store up to five times more carbon than previously thought, scientists say, as they warn that natural forests are crucial in the worldwide fight against climate change.

A study on the role of natural forests in carbon storage has found that unlogged natural eucalypt forests in Australia's south-east store about 640 tonnes of carbon a hectare, while intact old-growth forests in Victoria and Tasmania store up to 1200 tonnes a hectare.

The study was carried out by the Fenner School of Environment and Society at the Australian National University.

The report's co-author, Professor Brendan Mackey, said the leading world climate change body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, had got carbon storage levels wrong.

The scientific body said the average carbon stock in temperate forests was 217 tonnes a hectare.

The report by Professor Brendan Mackey, Heather Keith, Sandra Berry and David Lindenmayer found that natural forests stored almost three times as much carbon as plantations did.

Professor Mackey said, ''Protecting the carbon in Australia's and the world's natural forests is no longer an option: it is a necessity.''

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Untouched forests store 3 times more carbon

SYDNEY, Aug 5 (Reuters) - Untouched natural forests store three times more carbon dioxide than previously estimated and 60 percent more than plantation forests, said a new Australian study of "green carbon" and its role in climate change.

Green carbon occurs in natural forests, brown carbon is found in industrialised forests or plantations, grey carbon in fossil fuels and blue carbon in oceans.

Australian National University (ANU) scientists said that the role of untouched forests, and their biomass of green carbon, had been underestimated in the fight against global warming.

The scientists said the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Kyoto Protocol did not distinguish between the carbon capacity of plantation forests and untouched forests.

Yet untouched forests can carry three times the carbon presently estimated, if their biomass of carbon stock was included, said the ANU report released on Tuesday.

Currently, forest carbon storage capacity is based on plantation forest estimates.

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Reading, writing, tree planting

STUDENTS would plant trees during school hours to combat climate change under a plan being advocated by Australia's chief scientist.
Jim Peacock wants to conscript an army of "Carbon Kids", arguing tree planting would "enrich a national curriculum".

Dr Peacock also wants the government to pay indigenous communities to revegetate land to provide economic opportunities.

He plans to lobby Indigenous Affairs Minister and Education Minister Julia Gillard about his blueprint.

"The total amount of forest that children can plant is very small but they can be associated with larger scale things . . so that children will be able to feel part of something much larger and they can see change," Dr Peacock said.

"It's got to be part of what children learn about now, in the past it hasn't been. I've been quite shocked that it hasn't been part of the curriculum.

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