Update from the Field

Read Part I of Taking the Biomass Campaign to the Deep South here.

After several days of touring the Louisiana Bayou by car, boat, and foot, it was time for us to view the landscape from the sky. Last week, we had an amazing opportunity to fly with SouthWings, who agreed to take us up and give us an aerial view of the bayou basin, several wood pellet facilities and areas affected by industrial logging.

It was a particularly windy day, which gave my stomach some turns because of the bumpy ride! Seeing the bayou basin from the air was not only an entirely different perspective, but it also hammered home the scale of logging operations taking place in the gulf south. In one particular flyover, we viewed a huge section of swamp that was being logged that very moment. The bumpy flight was nothing compared to the way seeing bulldozers hauling away 200 year-old cypress trees churned my stomach.

This view from the top reinforced to me how important our work at the Dogwood Alliance really is. The forests, waterways, and communities in Louisiana, Mississippi, and throughout the South are counting on us to challenge and scale back the very real threat of companies like Enviva and Drax who are destroying our forests to keep the lights on in Europe.

It’s going to take a lot of strategic work and support from the entire Dogwood Alliance community, but after seeing firsthand the beautiful forests we’re fighting for, I know that we won’t stop until Southern forests are protected for generations to come.