The Albanese government is on the cusp of joining a global push to halt deforestation by 2030, driving the use of agriculture and forestry land as a source ofthat could generate income for farmers from big business and offshore markets.
, as well as Australia’s recently legislated 43 per cent nationwide CO2 reduction target, the pledge seeks to shift painful political battles over land-use and deforestation away from government-driven regulation to private-sector funded, market-driven solutions. Former competition watchdog Graeme Samuel, who signed the call alongside Dr Henry and more than 15 others including ANU law school carbon market expert Andrew Macintosh, likened the market-based incentives for biodiversity protection to the creation under 1990s national competition policy reforms of a market for water in the Murray Darling.
“If we are reversing deforestation then we are genuinely getting into the business of carbon removal at net-zero scales. That is definitely, with its land mass, something that Australia could offer the world,” he said. “If we care about koalas, possums and greater gliders, and bees that pollinate our agricultural crops, then we need to be leaving the forests we have in place.”
The group includes GreenCollar, the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, the Aboriginal Carbon Foundation, the Investor Group on Climate Change and the Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation headed by Lyndon Schneiders.