Right now, Campaign Director, Adam Macon, and Executive Director, Danna Smith, are in Europe delivering your SOS petitions, all 50,000 of them! They’re also presenting new information against the woody biomass industry and standing up for the forests we love. Our team has coordinated with international allies, met with top decision makers, premiered a documentary that features Dogwood and presented before several Members of the European Parliament. It has been extremely productive, and we’re not even half way through! A couple of initial takeaways have really jumped out to us.

Our movement is global and growing:

From Romania to France, Africa and across the sea in the Americas, protecting forests from the emerging threat of bioenergy (the burning of trees for electricity) is a growing movement.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEDX8VkdPCs[/youtube]

We are having a big impact:

Meeting after meeting. Event after Event. European policy makers are telling us that the destruction of Southern forests is a concern that Europe must address. From a policy perspective, this is a huge win! A movement has been built that has raised the controversy of the impacts and public support of solutions to a level where Southern forests are a focal point of European renewable energy policy.

The opposition is ramping up their efforts:

From utility companies and biomass trade associations to industrial forestry groups, the proponents of biomass have dramatically increased their lobbying and communication to policy makers. Industry opposition has been well-attended at every one of our events, they’ve meet with every policy maker that we’ve met with, and formulated responses to all our talking points. Our path to true forest protection is not going to be an easy one. The platform’s message and leadership role in the global movement to protect forests must increase because those who want to turn our forests into industrial crops, both in Europe and in the States, are not backing down. Now is the time for escalation.