Soaring demand for woody fuel has led to the construction of more than two dozen pellet factories in the Southeast and special port. European officials promote the trade as part of the fight against climate change. But that claim is increasingly coming under challenge.
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.
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 50,000 US citizens are appealing to European Commissioners Arias Cañete and Vella for a change in the EU legislation that has caused a boom in the demand for wood pellets produced from Southern US forests. Their demand is today being delivered to the European Commission by BirdLife Europe and the European Environmental Bureau.
This morning Dogwood Alliance, Virginia landowner and Hollywood Director, Ron Maxwell, and local community leaders spoke at a press conference to draw attention to the growing citizen opposition to the unchecked growth of the wood pellet export industry in Virginia and across the Southern United States
