Council carbon bid stirs outcry

DOUGLAS Shire Council has been lambasted for wanting to spend thousands of dollars of ratepayers’ money to plant trees in southeast Queensland, as part of a carbon trading scheme.

The council is expected today to vote on a proposal to sign up to a joint venture with Qantas, Tourism Port Douglas Daintree, and environmental markets investor GreenCollar to become a carbon neutral council.

The scheme would involve purchasing 6400 tonnes of carbon credits, which will be offset by planting trees at Rawbelle, 450km inland from Bundaberg.

The council’s chief executive Mark Stoermer has recommended the local government join the Healthy Reef Partnership for three years.

Mayor Julia Leu declined to disclose the total cost of the scheme to the council, however, said the annual cost would be “less than 0.5 per cent of the annual operating budget”.

“Council is actively looking at longer-term strategies for local tree planting, land restoration and soil carbon projects,” she said.

“However, this project enables council to become immediately carbon neutral.”

Douglas Shire Councillor Michael Kerr wrote on social media that he personally did not believe it was the most appropriate time to be mitigating carbon offsets, given the Far North’s current economic climate.

“Tourism is down, employment is down, the future of the (Mossman) Mill unknown,” he said.

“Around 20 per cent of our residential properties are on the market, and the shire is still rebuilding from amalgamation and de-amalgamation.”

He believed if the council signed up to the scheme, there would be only minor benefits for the region, including goodwill branding for tourism on a website.

Long-term Cape Tribulation resident Lawrence Mason said the lack of public consultation about the potential ratepayer expenditure on planting trees in southeast Queensland was “appalling”.

“While I think CO2 pollution is bunkum, planting trees is not a bad thing,” he said. “The attempt at sequestration could improve a riverbank here, with flow-on benefits to the Great Barrier Reef. Even if it was in any local reef catchment, it would be better.”

COUNCIL IS ACTIVELY LOOKING AT LONGER-TERM STRATEGIES FOR LOCAL TREE PLANTING, LAND RESTORATION AND SOIL CARBON PROJECTS