There is a growing need to scale up forest protection. While climate talks have resulted in increased commitments to protect forests in the tropics, the accelerated practice in recent years of burning trees from the US in place of coal to generate electricity has gone under the radar.
Our new report “Wood Pellet Manufacturing: Risks for the Economy of the US South” sheds much needed light on the economic downsides of this rapidly expanding new industry. The bottom line? The wood pellet export market is simply not a very smart 21st Century economic development strategy for our Southern rural communities. We can and must do better to support the economic well-being of the South’s rural communities.
I attended the Innovation Forum’s Washington, DC conference on “How businesses can tackle deforestation.” In the midst of all the great discussions, I noticed the deforestation associated with industrial forestry in the Southern US, our own backyard, didn’t get the air time it deserves.
Last week’s editorial “The EPA’s not-so-green emissions plan” in the Washington Post rightfully asserted that a wholesale switch from coal to wood as a fuel source for generating electricity would take us in the wrong direction on climate change. It would increase carbon emissions at the smokestack, while also degrading forests’ ability to remove and store carbon from the atmosphere. But the note at the end…
The US Forest Service’s Southern Research Station released a report assessing the current and potential impact of the rapidly expanding wood pellet export market on the forests of the US […]
