Forest science and forestry education

for a carbon, water, energy and

nutrient-constrained world

Andrew Campbell

Research Institute for the Environment and Livelihoods

Charles Darwin University

www.cdu.edu.au/riel

Personal declarations

• Farming background south-western Victoria

– Family farming in the district since 1860s, own farm managed since 1987

– 450ha near Cavendish: 30% farm forestry, 10% environmental reserves, 60% leased to

a neighbour for prime lambs

• Forestry & rural sociology: Creswick, Melbourne & Wageningen

– Last cohort to graduate from Creswick 1980

• Forester Victorian government

• First National Landcare Facilitator ‘89-92

• Environment Australia SES 1995-2000

• CEO Land & Water Australia 2000-06

• Triple Helix Consulting 2007-10

• Director, Research Institute for the Environment & Livelihoods, CDU 2011—

Presentation Title | 00 Month 2010 | Slide 3

• A new Tier One Research Institute

• Consolidating CDU environmental research in one place

• Interdisciplinary across the natural and social sciences

• Focus on northern Australia and the region to its north

• Strong emphasis on: • collaborative research partnerships (including ANU)

• Indigenous engagement

• working with research end-users to ensure relevance and

adoptability

Research Institute for

the Environment & Livelihoods (RIEL)

Presentation Title | 00 Month 2010 | Slide 4

• Natural Resources-based Livelihoods

• Coastal and Marine ecology and management

• Freshwater ecology and management

• Savanna Management and Wildlife Conservation

• Tropical Resource Futures

RIEL Research Themes

Presentation Title | 00 Month 2010 | Slide 5

• The ANU and CDU have a high level partnership

• NARU – the North Australia Research Unit gives the ANU a footprint

(& accommodation) on the Darwin campus of CDU

• We can offer jointly-badged PhDs

• We have both overlapping and complementary capabilities

• And both directors are long-term Queanbeyan residents…

• So have a think about doing RIEL fieldwork or post-grad studies

RIEL & the Fenner School – natural partners

6

Key Points

• The age of cheap, abundant fossil fuel energy is coming to an end

• The age of carbon accounting and pricing is beginning

• Rural landscapes will be more contested and more multifunctional

• Australia needs a third agricultural revolution

• Well-planned woody perennials have an important role

• New opportunities for forest science and forestry education

• Reflections on the value of forestry training

• In a world where carbon is valued, forestry should be a cool

profession, attracting top talent

Drivers for change

• Climate

• Water

• Energy

• Food

• Population, demography, consumption and

development pressures

• Competition for land & water resources

• Resource depletion & degradation

Source: WBCSD & IUCN 2008; Harvard Medical School 2008

Climate The core problem: population & carbon emissions

8

Water

• Each calorie takes one litre

of water to produce, on

average

• Like the Murray Darling

Basin, all the world’s major

food producing basins are

effectively ‘closed’ or

already over-committed

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Feeding the world • The world needs to increase food production by about

70% by 2050, & improve distribution

• We have done this in the past, mainly through clearing, cultivating and irrigating more land

– and intensification, better varieties, more fertiliser, pesticides

• Climate change and oil depletion is narrowing those options, with limits to water, land, energy & nutrients

• Rich consumers have major concerns about modern industrial food systems

– human health, animal welfare, environment, fair trade

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But maybe we ain’t seen nothin yet….

12

Energy &

nutrients

• The era of abundant,

cheap fossil fuels is

coming to a close

• Rising oil costs =

rising costs for

fertiliser, agri-

chemicals, transport

and food

Australia

13

World

Energy (2)

“ a significant risk of a peak in conventional oil production before 2020. The risks

presented by global oil depletion deserve much more serious attention by the

research and policy communities.”

UK Energy Research Centre, An assessment of the evidence for a near-term peak

in global oil production, August 2009

14

“we have to leave oil before oil leaves us, and we

have to prepare ourselves for that day”

Dr Fatih Birol, Chief Economist IEA, 3 August 2009

“The challenge of feeding 7 or 8 billion people while oil

supplies are falling is stupefying. It’ll be even greater if

governments keep pretending that it isn’t going to happen.”

George Monbiot, The Guardian 16.11.09

Water, energy, and GDP

15 from Proust, Dovers, Foran, Newell, Steffen & Troy (2007)

Energy & GDP

Water & GDP

Water and energy have

historically been closely

coupled with GDP in

Australia

Our challenge now is to

radically reduce the energy,

carbon and water-intensity of

our economy

Climate-energy-water feedbacks

16 from Proust, Dovers, Foran, Newell, Steffen & Troy (LWA 2007)

• Saving water often uses

more energy, and vice-

versa

• Efforts to moderate

climate often use more

energy +/or water

• E.g. coal-fired power

stations with CCS will be

25-33% more water-

intensive

• Using more fossil energy

exacerbates climate

chaos

Profound technical challenges 1. To decouple economic growth from carbon emissions

2. To adapt to an increasingly difficult climate

3. To increase water productivity

— decoupling the 1 litre per calorie relationship

4. To increase energy productivity

– more food energy out per unit of energy in

– while shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energy

5. To develop more sustainable food systems

– while conserving biodiversity and

– improving landscape amenity, soil health, animal welfare & human health

6. TO DO ALL OF THE ABOVE SIMULTANEOUSLY!

— improving sustainability and resilience

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We need a third agricultural revolution • High level goals: e.g. 50% increase in food & fibre production

while doubling water productivity, reducing net emissions to zero and becoming a net energy producer from agricultural and pastoral lands

• How to get there?

– Closed loop farming systems, not leaking:

(water, energy, nutrients, carbon, biodiversity, human talent)

– Smart metering, sensing, telemetry, robotics, guidance, biotech

– Better understanding of soil carbon & microbial activity

– Radically reducing waste in all parts of the food chain

– Farming systems producing renewable (2nd gen) bioenergy

– Biodiverse carbon sinks to offset unavoidable emissions

– Attracting young talent back into agriculture, forestry

and rural communities

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Woody biomass energy

• Learning from the Vikings:

– Finland: same area and population as Victoria, tougher climate, shorter

growing season, slower growth rates

– Private forestry thinnings etc produce 23% of Finland’s primary energy,

over 75% of thermal energy needs, and 20% of Finland’s electricity

– In Sweden it is 20% (already higher than oil) with a target of 40%

• Foran et al suggest woody biomass energy can fuel Australia

• WA already in the lead

– 2nd Gen biofuels (mallees)

40-50 times more energetically efficient than ethanol

CRC Future Farm Industries energy trees

Developing an efficient supply chain for woody energy crops

integrated into wheatbelt farming systems.

Solving a bottleneck with the invention of a new harvesting head

that can handle tough mallee species

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Biocarbon/energy integrated into

agricultural systems vs replacing them

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• Mallees occupy 8-10% of farms

• Minimal food production trade-off

• 48 times more energetically efficient than

ethanol

• 300-550mm rainfall zone

— minimal water yield loss and low opportunity cost

• Salinity, erosion control and biodiversity

benefits

22

• SE Australia is already “post-agricultural” in several regions

• We have some elements of a new paradigm

– Ecoservices etc

– Carbon offsets market (Greenfleet et al)

– New corporate players — e.g. VicSuper, energy companies

• We know areas that need to expand – Water conservation

– Habitat restoration and reconnection

– Residential

– Renewable energy (biomass, biogas, wind, solar)

• and we know how not to do it — MIS!

“Carbon plus” wool, beef and

sheep meat

24

Forestry integrated with farming

vs replacing farming

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Transition to carbon-neutral,

energy-positive rural landscapes

• We should market ‘carbon plus’ grass-fed, rain-fed, red meat, cereals

and oilseeds

– Which means significant offsets built-in to grazing & cropping systems

– Potential benefits for habitat, micro-climate, aesthetics, water quality,

shelter, bioenergy and carbon

• BUT: MIS schemes show that, without good planning & controls, the

market will default to large monoculture plantations replacing

agriculture, not integrated into farming (sub-prime carbon!)

•

•

•

The integration imperative • Managing whole landscapes

– “where nature meets culture” (Simon Schama)

– landscapes are socially constructed

– beyond ‘ecological apartheid’

– NRM means people management

– engage values, perceptions, aspirations, behaviour

• Integration

- across issues — e.g climate, energy, water, food, biodiversity

- across scales — agencies, governments, short-term, long-term

- across the triple helix — landscapes, lifestyles & livelihoods

Scales for response to climate change

• Many of the main drivers of biodiversity loss

operate at the landscape-scale e.g. habitat

fragmentation, invasive species and

changed fire regimes.

• It is the scale which lends itself to

integrated, whole of ecosystem and cross

tenure solutions.

• In Australia the most threatened

components of biodiversity are in the

intensive zones and

CSIRO 2010

30

Forest Science and Forestry Education

• Extremely relevant and useful — more now than ever

• Looming gap between supply and demand for graduates

• Key attributes:

– Breadth across the physical, chemical and biological sciences &

ecology

– Significant doses of applied economics and management

– Important toolkit for a carbon economy

– Just enough social science to be dangerous (room for improvement)

– Explicitly embracing a wide range of scales in space and time

– Comfortable with dynamic systems, uncertainty & non-linear

processes

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Forest Science and Forestry Education (2)

• Main challenges

– Attracting top talent — professional image needs a makeover

– Moving beyond polarised forest policy debates

– Offering practical, enticing ways to ‘sharpen the saw’

(e.g. Master Tree Grower)

– National Forestry Masters Program (NFMP) an important

framework

– Needs to complement national R,D&E strategies

– Industry support and investment in education is critical

Changes in environmental thinking

Issue Focus Existing approaches Landscape and resilience based approaches

Biodiversity

conservation

threatened species & habitats

protected areas priority

limited private land involvement

ecosystem functions

critical/keystone species

linked whole-of-system

Science input distribution & abundance of species

static ecosystem structures

models of predictable change

optimization and economic tools

non-linear dynamics and complex systems

shocks, feedbacks, thresholds

cross-scale interactions

complex social-ecological systems

Policy tools mix of approaches

short term objectives

fixed targets

changed mix of approaches ?

long-term objectives ?

adaptive/flexible targets ?

management at multiple temporal and temporal

scales ?

Governance

models

rigid institutional structures

whole-of-government coordination

community engagement

integration across institutions ?

integrated planning across multiple scales ?

adaptive governance structures ?

devolved/shared decision-making ?

Source, Thompson & Flanigan May 2011 unpub

Sustainability and Resilience

• Complementary concepts

• Sustainability remains relevant and desirable

– Living within our means

– Thinking long term (inter-generational equity)

– Distinguishing between depletable and renewable

resources

– Avoiding or limiting actions that degrade, pollute, over-

use or compromise ecosystem function

• BUT: Sustainability is less instructive around:

– Social and economic dimensions

– Operating in contexts with inherent variability

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Resilience – the new kid on the block

• Basically refers to the capacity of a system to absorb shocks,

reorganise and retain the same functions

– As resilience declines, it takes a progressively smaller shock to push a

system across a threshold

• Adds value in explicitly embracing change and variability

• Introduces the useful concept

of thresholds or tipping points

• Also embraces scale

– Resilience at a given scale

requires an understanding of

at least one scale up & down

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Rebranding Forestry & Agriculture

• As brands, Forestry and Agriculture are tired and faded

– negative connotations in terms of profitability, lifestyle, ‘old

economy’ and environmental virtue

— tend to be judged by worst practice

– very low levels of professional training

(7% with a degree in 2004, c/f 17% for mining and 24% for services)*

• We have to re-think, re-tool, re-skill and re-brand

• Carbon pricing and energy insecurity presents a huge opportunity for farm & agroforestry

– Vis Reid & Wilson 1985, Campbell 1990, Alexandra & Hall 1998,

Youl 2001, Garnaut 2007, Lang 2008, Wentworth Group 2009

* Source: Bull & Kanowski IFA presentation 2009

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Rebranding Forestry & Agriculture (2)

• Forestry (like agriculture) can be seen as core to the food

system, the energy system and even the health system

– with a new story around carbon, water, energy, fibre,

biodiversity and survival: ‘keepers of the long view’

• High quality Australian forestry

— a key to responsible living

37

Take home messages

• Rural landscapes are more contested and squeezed

between major drivers: climate, water, energy, food

• Australia needs a third agricultural revolution

• Well-planned woody perennials have an important role

• This creates exciting new opportunities for forest science

and forestry education

• Our professional image and approach must change

• Multifunctional rural landscapes offer a fertile seedbed

For more information

www.cdu.edu.au/riel

www.triplehelix.com.au