In promoting using wood for ‘bioenergy’ this manual makes serious factual errors and admissions contrary to the impression it seeks to create, i.e. that the wood biomass used is waste or ‘residue’. Fine print demonstrates that whole standing trees (as per the NSW DPI residue report) can be logged and burnt for ‘bioenergy’. Footnote 1 of p. 5 states ‘full utilisation refers to roundwood. Leaves/needles and branches are typically left behind in the forest to aid nutrient recycling.’ It is not harvest residue but trunks of ‘pulp logs’, trunks that that might otherwise have been left standing, possible to mature to store carbon and provide habitat.
The manual argues native forests have become thicker as a result of less Aboriginal burning. This is far from factual. Forest ‘thickening’ is caused by overly intense logging. Such unsustainable logging is making forests more fire prone. Intensive logging for wood ‘bioenergy’ will perpetuate this problem.
This manual claims that bioenergy markets contribute directly to enhancing forest health and biodiversity, (p.5). This is directly contradicted by a international and national science. See ‘Forests as Energy and Fuel’ under ‘Threats and Impacts’ where scientific articles and opinion on this matter are to be found along with videos of scientists explaining why this is not the case.