Can Australian plantation forest carbon offset methods increase carbon storage and timber supply? A case study from the Green Triangle plantation forestry region in Australia

The plantation forestry estate in Australia has been in decline for a decade or more. Previous studies attribute observed investment inertia to factors including the long-term nature of forestry investments, high up front establishment cost and more recently water resource constraints. The introduction of plantation forestry methods as part of the Australian Carbon Credit Unit Scheme in 2017 has generated renewed interest in plantation forestry as a carbon abatement option. To assess this opportunity, we performed high spatial resolution bioeconomic modelling of southeastern Australia's Green Triangle forestry region to understand the joint influence of site productivity, species selection and spatially variable costs including agricultural land prices and transport distances on land use change and additional future timber flows. We found that additional plantations may be economically viable at a carbon price of AU$39/t CO