On World Wetlands Day, February 2nd, the Dutch government voted in favor of forest protection over forest destruction and overwhelmingly adopted a resolution to halt dirty biomass subsidies for burning forests in coal-fired power plants. This is great news for our Southern forests and a strong signal that we are winning!
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.
Black bears all over the Southeastern United States are threatened by an ever-increasing and destructive biomass industry that is converting whole forests into pellets for European electricity. Humans have yet again allowed their greed for profit and cheap fuel to trump species’ need for protected habitat. Take a stand against biomass and join our National Day of Action.
Recently a couple of us here at Dogwood went out on an investigation of the wood pellet manufacturing facilities in North Carolina. All of the facilities are owned and operated by Enviva and exist for the sole purpose of producing wood pellets to feed the market in Europe, particularly the UK-based utility company Drax.
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.
