The role of forestry in Australia’s bioeconomy: an assessment of the opportunities and challenges with an international comparison

The global community faces challenges associated with pollution, waste generation, biodiversity loss, and landscape alteration and degradation, as well as a warming planet and climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions. Decoupling economic growth and development from natural resource consumption is gaining support as a strategy to address these global challenges. This is the main principle of a bio-based economy or bioeconomy, the renewable component of a circular economy. Forests have the potential to contribute renewable, biological resources including bre and energy, thereby reducing our dependency on non-renewable sources of carbon like fossil fuels. Forest-based bioenergy, timber for construction, bio-based packaging and pulp and paper products can replace fossil-fuel based products like coal, gas, and plastics, thereby reducing emissions and helping to mitigate climate change. This move from fossil-fuel-based resources to renewable sources of carbon is especially important for countries like Australia which have large, dispersed forest resources alongside a well-established fossil-fuel based sector. This study focuses on summarising the national and sub-national bioeconomy policies and context within Australia to better understand the role that forestry might play in a more sustainable future. As well, a comparison is made to other well-established forestry markets around the world, such as exists in the European Union and North America, where circular economy and bioeconomy strategies are better established. Hence, this study aims to contribute knowledge about the nexus between forest-based industries and bioeconomy policies, suggesting future research areas and policy implications for Australia.