This paper investigates the clearance of native forests and native vegetation for plantation establishment, otherwise known as forest conversion, in the state-owned plantations of New South Wales, Australia. It begins by describing Australia’s forests, plantations, and forest conversion, continues with an outline of the history of public hardwood plantations in New South Wales, and explores the regulatory frameworks that allow this practice to happen, and the responses adopted by non-state environmental governance systems, notably forest certification, to address this problem. The paper presents a case study analysis of conversion in the hardwood plantations of northern NSW, and concludes that the current regulatory environment facilitates deforestation, with cumulative impacts at the landscape level, and that without government intervention, efforts to prevent this by non-state action will only be partially successful, leading to ongoing habitat and species loss. The failure of existing legislative and regulatory frameworks to adequately acknowledge, define, and prohibit conversion will remain an impediment to sustainable forest management, as the entry of such timber into the market contaminates supply chains, resulting in considerable reputation risk. Reform is needed in both public and private governance systems to ensure strong governance, effective planning, and ecosystem integrity at the landscape level. Recommendations are provided for policymakers.

An increasing number of countries are adopting net‐zero‐emissions targets requiring large‐scale removal of CO 2 ‐e through ecological restoration. Are these plans feasible, and will they transform the realm of restoration ecology? We use Australia's plan for net‐zero emissions as a test case. Widespread degradation across Australia's ecoregions, from savannas to seagrasses, provide opportunities for restoration, producing “negative emissions.” The basic science on carbon stocks and flows is available. However, large gaps in the existing measurement methods obscures failure, or fails to incentivize action and the potential for emissions reductions is unknown. Other countries intentions for emissions coverage is currently unknown and extensive use of land for carbon abatement could cause leakage of Australia's agricultural emissions offshore. A key risk is the permanence of ecosystem carbon under a changing climate. Considering its heavy reliance on ecological restoration, these risks and unknowns suggest that Australia's plan is not, or at least not yet, feasible.

Large quantities of 'negative emissions' will be required to meet the 1.5 & DEG;C temperature target under the Paris agreement. As nations consider more ambitious emissions reductions goals, policy makers, carbon market participants and environmental advocates need to estimate the potential scale of nature-based climate solutions (NCS), against the opportunity cost of current land use. In this study we construct a simple linear regression model of the relationship between carbon abatement potential and agricultural profitability, the latter a proxy for opportunity cost, to describe the total set of options for NCS on the Australian continent. Sampling these same two variables at the sites of over 800 land-based offset projects accredited since 2015 shows how the market selected from these abatement options. The model demonstrates that offset projects, under a range of crediting methodologies, were typically selected where the ratio of abatement potential to opportunity cost is maximized. These results, produced from two readily available spatial variables, provide an empirically derived framework for those with an interest in the structure of the long-run supply curve for land-based carbon abatement. This modelling approach could be applied in any geographic region where similar spatial variables for agricultural profitability and abatement potential are available. Key policy insightsWe find a strong positive correlation between the quantity of abatement potential on a land parcel and its potential opportunity cost, the latter represented by agricultural profitability.The lowest cost abatement will be obtained by policies, including market mechanisms, that optimize these two factors rather than prioritizing one over the other.Policies that direct projects to 'marginal' agricultural land may lead to a more costly emissions reduction pathway.Our modelling approach is a key input to the development of a long-run supply curve for land-based abatement, essential to any strategy that relies heavily on negative emissions.Understanding the drivers of land-based abatement projects can help to predict the land use policy impacts of a higher offset requirement.

A global trend of increasing tree cover in savannas has been observed and ascribed to a range of possible causes, including CO2 levels, changing rainfall and fire frequency. We tested these explanations in the Australian tropical savanna, taking 96 savanna ‘cool burning’ projects from Australia’s emissions offset scheme as case studies. We obtained readings of tree cover and explanatory variables from published remote sensing or spatial data sources. These were analysed using time-series linear regression to obtain coefficients for the influence of severe fire occurrence, annual rainfall and prior percentage tree cover. Although statistically significant coefficients for the key variables were found in only half (severe fire) or one quarter (rainfall) of the individual project models, when comparing all the model coefficients across the rainfall gradient, ecologically coherent explanations emerge. No residual trend was observed, suggesting rising CO2 levels have not influenced tree cover over the study period. Our approach models tree cover change by separating ecological drivers from human-controlled factors such as fire management. This is an essential design feature of national emissions inventories and emissions offsets programs, where crediting must be additional to the expected baseline, and arise from human activity.

This study examines the impact of mainstream political parties' strategies on the Australian Greens, a 'niche party' associated with the global warming issue. The Green vote rose between the 2004 and 2016 elections despite voters' support for action on global warming declining. Meguid ([2008]. Party Competition Bbetween Unequals: Strategies and Electoral Fortunes in Western Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press) proposed that mainstream parties must decide whether to dismiss, accommodate, or oppose a new issue and niche party, predicting the impacts using the theory of 'issues-based voting'. We use a time series of voting intention to test this theory. Mainstream party strategies had the predicted effects on the Greens vote. In the presence of a competitive niche party, mainstream parties' strategies may respond to the dynamics of competition, beyond the traditionally considered institutional and economic forces.