2015 is already an exciting year for Dogwood Alliance! To protect the most forests through strong and efficient work, we’ve added a few new faces to the team. Please welcome…
Atlanta, GA – Today, a diverse coalition of conservationists, student groups and outdoorsmen from across the Southeast held a rally outside of the British Consulate in Atlanta, GA calling on the U.K. to stop burning Southern US forests for electricity. The U.K. is the world’s largest importer of wood pellets from the region, some of which are harvested from endangered wetlands, shipped to Europe and burned to generate electricity as a replacement for coal. Last year, wood pellet exports from southern ports increased more than 70 percent.
After 2 years of negotiations, Dutch NGO’s and Utility Companies agreed on a biomass policy for wood pellets currently burned for electricity. We in the Southern states know all too well that the drastic increase and scale of demand for wood pellets, driven by countries such as the Netherlands, have had devastating effects on forests and communities. Biomass policies from European countries must be more aggressive with timelines for adequate sustainability standards; our forests depend on it.
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…
Over the course of the trip: hustling from meeting to meeting, engaging with officials, delivering our presentation, Communications Director Scot Quaranda and I came to realize an important shift in the way conversation is taking place about the forests we call home. For too many years, the forests of the Southern United States have been sparsely recognized for their incredible contributions to biodiversity, mitigating climate change and improving the health and quality of our communities. Yet, as they begin to take center stage in the global debate over using our forests for fuel, Southern forests have finally begun to get the recognition they deserve.
