Greens label Government’s North Coast bioenergy proposal as ‘dead koala power’

NSW Greens Forests spokesperson, Dawn Walker has labelled a proposal by the NSW Department of Primary Industry to burn North Coast forests for electricity generation as ‘dead koala power’.

“Koala populations are plummeting across NSW and rather than looking at serious ways to protect our precious koalas, like supporting the Great Koala National Park plan, we see outrageous proposals like this that will intensify logging in vital koala habitat across the NSW North Coast.

“Using forests to produce energy is madness when we know it takes decades for new trees to absorb carbon, which is released when we burn timber from forests for energy.

“What the NSW Department of Primary Industry describe as ‘forestry residue’ in this proposal is actually smaller trees that would otherwise be retained after logging operations. Put simply, this bioenergy proposal is nothing more than a naked attempt to increase the intensity of logging operations in our precious North Coast forests and obliterate more koala habitat.

“If this Government is at all serious about addressing climate change or preventing the extinction of wild koalas in NSW, they would immediately rule-out this proposal that essentially equates to ‘dead koala power’.

“The people of the North Coast want clean, renewable energy from wind and solar, not convoys of log-trucks lining up with trees from some of the most biodiverse forests in the world to feed into dirty polluting furnaces” said Dawn Walker MP.

https://bellingendistrictgreens.blogspot.com.au/2017/11/burning-wood-for-power-perverse-use-of.html