Isra-Mart srl: Emissions trading scheme? Take a leaf out of our book

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Not that Mr O'Connor is critical of attempts to redress the pressing global issue of climate change and global warming caused by harmful greenhouse gas emissions. Simply, he is already a step ahead of any national regulatory scheme administered by the federal government to penalise or price carbon pollution in Australia.

Two months ago, Mr O'Connor became one of only 14 farmers in Australia to be issued with verified carbon credits that can be sold on international markets. In the next few weeks, he expects to sell more than 30,000 carbon offset credits, or units, generated on his historic property, Connorville, to global companies looking to offset their greenhouse gas emissions.

Even more startlingly, the Cressy farmer has discovered he can earn as much by leaving native trees on his property standing and being paid for their carbon content, as he would by cutting them down.

At the current market rate of an average $15 for every carbon offset credit sold - equivalent to one tonne of emissions saved by not logging his forests and turning them into woodchips, paper or processed timber - it is a welcome cash injection of more than $400,000 annually.

"Do I now call myself a carbon farmer?" Mr O'Connor asks rhetorically. "Absolutely; and I'm very happy to do so."

The switch from being a farmer of trees, sheep and irrigated crops to one with a large focus on carbon trading came over the past few years, as Mr O'Connor observed the changing viability of the Tasmanian timber industry and the emerging global carbon economy.

The seventh-generation landholder decided not to log any of the 3500ha of native forest on Connorville that had been slated to be gradually harvested over the next 50 years.

Instead, he called in specialist carbon assessment company Redd Forests to measure and assess how much carbon would be preserved - and then traded - in his tall eucalypt trees by deciding not to cut them down. The result surprised him, with the opportunity for earning as much annually from selling his protected trees over 25 years as if he had progressively cut them down.

"Too few Australians realise that you can already trade carbon and farmers like my family are now being paid to do so," Mr O'Connor said yesterday.

"By registering my forests for carbon offsets, I'm getting the same income as if I had harvested the trees, but I'm also delivering outcomes for the environment and for my family's farming future."

Other Tasmanian landholders are choosing to follow the same path as Mr O'Connor.

Last month, Bothwell's Peter Downie became the first farmer in Australia to bank hard cash for selling his registered carbon credits. He was paid more than $200,000 when he sold his first 15,000 carbon credits of the 70,000 units he has had assessed, registered and verified to a German property developer and a Japanese wool processor. Both were looking to neutralise their companies' carbon footprints - the former for marketing reasons and the latter to meet Japanese regulatory requirements.

Mr Downie admits it has been a long process to go through the rigorous carbon measuring, assessment and verification scheme for the 10,000ha of native forests he has decided to preserve rather than to log, but he emphasises that his decision to become a carbon farmer was one made for economic reasons from "the head", rather than driven by any environmental or "green" emotions.

Redd Forests managing director Stephen Dickey admits he is delighted to see the first cash flowing from the campaign to translate standing native forests in Tasmania into valuable carbon credits instead of toilet paper or plywood.