Dogwood Alliance wants to set the record straight about what Southerners affected by the biomass industry actually think about the increased capacity for sending our forests away to be burned.
Last week, Rita Frost and I left the office for a two week Outreach Tour to meet with people across the South who are passionate about protecting our Southern forests. We are here to learn what issues are important to them in their communities, and how Dogwood Alliance can support them. We are here to understand what their relationships are to their local and global forests.
Unfortunately, climate deniers and special interests are fighting tooth and nail to destroy or water down this plan. Despite the fact that our forests are our best defense against climate change and the scientific community widely views burning forests for electricity as the wrong direction, the Environmental Protection Agency is considering including biomass electricity as a potential pathway for meeting the goals of the plan.
The dirty biomass industry is not the future for our Southern communities or forests. We need long-term solutions that value the health and prosperity of people and the environment. And it is our right to demand this from policymakers and industry leaders. With organizing and action, we can pave the way for a future that puts the needs of the people before corporate profit, and values our forests for the myriad of life-supporting services they provide just by standing. Our Southern communities and forests are not resources that can be taken advantage of for the personal gain of greedy industries. They are vital components of a vibrant global community and ecosystem, and we must take action to make sure they continue to be so.
Katya, John and Rita have been a huge asset to the Our Forests Aren’t Fuel campaign. Between the three of them, they collected 2,834 SOS messages to Save Our Southern forests, turned out 500 people to 5 different visibility events, and generated 31 total media hits. Their passion and dedication to forest protection sparked a growing movement in the cities they worked in – Baton Rouge, Wilmington and Savannah. In these port cities, where our Southern forests are exported away to be burned as fuel, residents are standing up to send a clear message to policy makers and industry leaders: Our forests aren’t fuel.
