The Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA) today urged federal and state governments to lean heavily on timber-based solutions after Canberra set a 62–70 per cent emissions reduction goal below 2005 levels by 2035. AFPA Chief Executive Diana Hallam warned that without the forestry sector’s full supply chain, the new target will be out of reach.
“We acknowledge the Government’s sector plans announced alongside the new 2035 target—especially the Agriculture and Land Sector Plan and Built Environment Sector Plan—which point to enormous opportunities for forestry to be an essential part of the decarbonisation solution,” according to Hallam. “We will engage with the Commonwealth to ensure forestry, and its supply chain, can help meet the Government’s targets with the biggest possible contribution.”
Hallam highlighted timber’s dual role as both a carbon store and a construction material. She said that substituting wood for steel and concrete in new homes and commercial buildings, alongside the expanded use of wood-fibre packaging, power poles, and mulch products, will lock up carbon and support regional employment.
“By using timber in new homes and buildings to displace carbon-intensive construction materials, wood-fibre-based packaging instead of plastics, paper and tissue products, power poles and even garden and mulch products—alongside production trees absorbing carbon as they grow—the forestry sector will help our national economy decarbonise while providing essential employment and economic contributions for the nation,” she said.
Now, AFPA will work with the Albanese Government on existing programs such as the Support Plantation Establishment Program (SPEP) and the continued, necessary role of sustainable native forestry. “We’ll partner through the processing and manufacturing cogs of our supply chain—as the country works towards net zero,” Hallam said, who invoked the authority of Australia’s former Chief Scientist, Professor Ian Chubb: “The only pathway known to science that has immediate capacity—to remove greenhouse gases, particularly CO₂, from the atmosphere is photosynthesis. Australia’s sustainable forestry sector grows, processes and manufactures trees into a range of essential products—locking up carbon at scale.”
