Tim Flannery

Leading conservationist Tim Flannery says environmental opposition to a controversial new plan to use carbon credits to end logging in NSW is shortsighted and the federal Greens should back a move that will create huge benefits for the state’s native forests. The credits, which are generated by nature restoration projects and used by big industrial companies to offset emissions, have been proposed by the NSW government as a way to fund its new Great Koala National Park in the state’s north. However, a Nationals move to block the plan in the federal senate has split the environmental movement and the federal Greens party room, who hold the balance of power but have been unable to reach a final position ahead of next week’s vote. Flannery … said the credits were not a perfect solution to the problem of native forest logging, but critics of the plan needed to live in the real world.