So, let me see if I have this right. Following the Wilderness Society's and the ACF's line of reasoning, if I cut down a tree with the intention of milling it, that tree then immediately emits all of its carbon straight back into the atmosphere? Come on, give us a break! Also, who says that you have to cut down an "Old Growth" tree to make fine furniture. These people do not have the remotest idea of the types of timber used in fine furniture making. Here are a few hard facts about the carbon storage in wood.

1. When a log is milled the amount of wood retrieved is somewhere around 45% of the log. The rest is sawdust and waste. Modern milling techniques are constantly reducing the amount of waste with some mills achieving over 55% retrieval!

2. A further 10% is lost in the process of making the piece of furniture or in house building.

3. Fine furniture can be used for hundreds of years. I still have my some of my grandmother's and mother's furniture. Some of it dates back to the 1890s.

4. There are many houses still standing and occupied, dating back a hundred years or so that have a lot of timber in their construction.

5. Plantation grown high quality cabinet timbers and also construction timbers can be grown in 15 years in Queensland. Better quality trees can be grown in 25 years. That is at least four crops per century.

Start counting the tons of carbon locked up for very long periods, and you will be staggered by the total amount. Even though only some 30% of the log is eventually used, it still adds up to a lot of timber and consequently Carbon being stored for very long periods.

Utilizing the waste from the timber industry to generate energy in the form of electricity, synthetic diesel and gas is definitely on the agenda and being done already or being actively investigated by industry now. What on earth are these wackos bleating about? They want green energy. They want to have carbon stored. They want toilet paper to wipe their bums. The timber industry gives it all !!!

It seems the purpose of the green movement is to say you can't for the environment. To say you can for the environment defeats the purpose. Because it's really not about the environment at all, it's about power.

Dear green pixies - if pianos are luxuries then home theatre systems, I-Pods, PDAs and Blackberrys are luxuries too.

I thought the building of houses for Australians would have been more appropriate!

There was an interesting report published by ANU on green Carbon recently: http://epress.anu.edu.au/green_carbon/pdf_instructions.html

Well done forests and wood products Australia. Hopefully our school teachers can absorb some of this truth and pass it on to our children to help them avoid green non-productive thinking and future global financial shortfalls.

keep the campaign running

I have humble fence posts on my place that are still doing the job they were cut for in 1927. It was the barbed wire that gave up first. And if farmers really wanted to store carbon they should stop using imported, or metro-manufactured, steel pickets. Good Ironbark, Bloodwood or Grey Gum 2x2's will last longer than a grazing lease renewal, cost half as much as steel and keep the money in your own district. Pre-drill a hole with an old 1 & 1/4" hand auger and they will ram just as easily as a steel post while compacting the soil around it, and only take an extra 40 seconds on each stick. And the money saved will cut your mortgage.

So let's get back to the basics here, carbon is stored in either animal, vegetable or mineral form right? And by temporarily preventing timber from being broken down by natural forces such as fire, rotting away etc this actually sequesters the carbon. Any arguments about this? So it seems to be more of an issue about the way that the timber is grown and harvested that is causing the problem, as it can't really be about timber acting as a carbon bank. Actually timber is a great renewable resource, all we need is space, sunshine, water and a bit of soil and we can grow all the carbon sequestering trees we want to.

And the other easily enhanced and quick natural carbon bank is soil with grass roots, biochar etc being able to store lots and lots of carbon in it for long periods of time. Now if we manage both systems well, this should be able to store a huge amount of carbon out of the atmosphere for us. While at the same time being able to be productive in other ways such as providing us with fuel, timber housing, food, paper etc.

So let's grow up a bit, and start finding real solutions where we can stop attacking the industry, and start working to find efficient environmentally friendly ways of creating real jobs and utilising properly our natural resources, while protecting wilderness and sensitive areas. If the logging of old growth forests is the problem, well just say that. If there is an unsustainable level of clear felling and logging and land clearing of our native forest well why not express outrage about that.

I don't see the environmental groups that I donate to actively promoting sustainable use of these 2 carbon banks, such as selective logging that leaves all the old tress and only takes a medium sized tree out, every now and then, leaving a gap in the tree canopy. And anyone who studies high school science knows this gap is quickly replaced by a self sown sapling usually of the same type that was removed.

OK this whole issue is complex. There is a lot at stake here if we get this wrong, but will bickering help? So how can we work together and use an evidence based approach to decision making, how do we overcome petty bickering to see the real issues and collectively act with integrity for the benefit of our future generations? Beats me, but I think we may need to get our governments to start providing more real support to landowners and industry, and investing in research and development so we can have a hope in hell of achieving some advances here.

Thelma, I've been planting and regenerating native trees since 1959. And it may interest you to learn that almost every other landowner who, like me, has quietly expanded our forests to cover large parts of our properties, save our deepest loathing for the so-called environmental groups that you have been giving money to. They are nothing like what they claim to be. And I don't really know what you mean by ending the bickering. I grow trees. And my trees grow faster than I can cut them up for useful purposes. And the only reason why I don't grow more trees is the fact that some people, who don't even own a single tree, are telling people like you that they know more about it than we do.