16/10/2025
https://theconversation.com/a-crucial-store-of-carbon-in-australias-tropical-forests-has-switched-from-carbon-sink-to-carbon-source-262955 Something I've been wondering about, observing our remnant forest on Wurraglen and in adjacent Amamoor National Park over the last 30 years. 3 decades could just be a little wobbly wave in the general long term carbon cycle, but it seems to be a pretty simplistic act of faith to rely on forests for atmospheric carbon sequestration in the face of all the assaults we have made on them over the last century. (Fragmentation, introduction of new organisms, changes to hydrological cycle, loss of supporting biodiversity, fire regimes etc etc etc. ) The carbon cycle disruption is but one of the many massive changes imposed on the wider biosphere by the anthropocene. We currently seem to have a very blinkered narrow view of the world we live in and our interactions with it.
The woody biomass of Australia’s tropical rainforests has already switched from carbon sink to carbon source – and the reason is climate change.
