This is an exercise which you can take as far as you wish.

We are often told that we have large carbon footprints. In Australia we emit an average of around 25 tonnes per year of CO2

I had often wondered just how many trees I would need to plant to be soaking up the carbon I am producing.

Here I have provided links to sites which can help you to calculate you carbon emissions and how big your footprint forest would need to be.

If you are really keen - you can go ahead and plant it! The idea is that we have the power to offset our own carbon emissions by capturing the carbon in growing trees.

While it may be much more practical for many of us, we don’t NEED to pay people to do it for us.

What we do need is some land, some seeds and the determination to take care of the land and be responsible for keeping maitenance up with local safety regulations, eg fire safety

Now to the calculations.

Each Australian is emitting 25 tones of CO2 per year.

Trees generally sequester more CO2 while they are growing, and the rate of sequestration tends to plateau as they reach their full height.

Luckily, estimates cited below

However, research done in Kingaroy, South East Queensland, Australia, suggests that each hectare of spotted gum plantation can sequester 35.5 tonnes of CO2, within 4 years of planting. Each hectare may sequester up to 1200 tonnes over 25 years.

This is equivalent to 48 years of the average Australian’s carbon footprint.

So even if we halve this figure (ie sequestering 24 tonnes in 25 years) to account for loss of trees, variation in soil quality etc, it seems that a single hectare of spotted gums could soak up the annual emissions of each Australian.

Other species’, such as the Maritime Pine, may sequester up to 3 times as much CO2 per hectare annually. Between 1000 and 1600 maritime pines per hectare seems to be the range of tree densities which are workable.

(http://www.dec.wa.gov.au/pdf/science/carbon_farming.pdf)

While it may not be practical for us all to plant our own ‘Footprint Forest’, it is good to be aware of the number of trees we need to support our lifestyles.

Tree planting is not all of the answer to becoming carbon neutral, but it is certainly an important part of the answer.

• Carbon Farming
• Large Scale Carbon Sequestration
• Footprint Calculator