SOS forests

If a tree falls in North Carolina, can it make the lights go on in London? The European Union seems to think so, along with a rapidly expanding industry that’s cutting down trees to burn for energy. It’s called biomass, and while its advocates boast that it is “clean” and “renewable,” studies by groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council have shown that burning trees for fuel is dirtier than burning coal.

In a rush to meet renewable energy targets in the EU, energy companies such as Drax have been switching over their coal facilities to fire wood pellets faster than you can say “deforestation.” To satisfy these tremendous demands for woody biomass, European utilities have partnered with industry across the Atlantic. Working with firms in the pellet industry such as Enviva, European energy companies are importing biomass from the U.S. South, where nearly 90 percent of forestland is privately held and majestic hardwood forests are apparently ripe for the picking. As of 2014, wood pellet exports from Southeastern ports had increased by 70 percent in just one year, making the U.S. South the world’s top exporter of wood pellets.

Biomass is classified as a renewable resource because, simply put, the source can grow back. This means that the emissions are part of the natural carbon cycle. But when woody biomass (particularly whole trees) from forests is used for energy, it can take decades to recapture that lost carbon. We’re in a climate crisis. If we want to avoid a climate catastrophe, we can’t afford to raze forests, natural carbon stocks that absorb up to a third of annual greenhouse emissions worldwide. Despite this, biomass has a green sheen to it—a false glow that has blinded policymakers, industry professionals, and even some scientists to the unsustainable practice of burning trees for energy.

It isn’t only our atmosphere at stake. Forests provide a whole host of ecosystem services in addition to carbon sequestration: they purify our water and protect surrounding communities from floods and storms. Bottomland hardwood forests in the coastal plains—the same ones most at risk from the biomass industry—are increasingly important for storm protection in the face of climate change. Additionally, the U.S. South houses the main hotspots of biodiversity in the U.S., providing habitat for many plants and animals that will be endangered or lost to deforestation. Forests also hold immeasurable cultural, recreational, and spiritual value: scenic beauty, restorative retreats to nature, the places we grew up hiking or fishing. When we lose our forests to unsustainable logging, we’re losing a part of our national heritage.

Here in the South, you don’t need to look far for these natural treasures: you could wander just minutes from Duke’s campus and retreat to the Duke Forest. But you also don’t need to search for signs of destructive logging practices. After all, our region accounts for only 5 percent of the planet’s forests but provides a full quarter of the world’s paper. Perhaps you have driven past the evidence: clear cuts dried by the sun in harsh contrast with the otherwise lush countryside. Maybe you have even smelled the mills, heard the industrial din, inhaled the sawdust in the heavy air.

As a campaign intern and student board member of Dogwood Alliance, an organization that defends Southern forests from unsustainable industrial logging, I have become intimately aware of the threats of an expanding biomass industry. In a recent investigation, I joined Dogwood Alliance’s campaign director, Adam Macon, and witnessed firsthand the injury to forests in the U.S. South. We followed trucks from an Enviva facility in Eastern NC and trudged through the cypress swamps to see one of their logging sites. What we found was a massive wetland clear cut, withered and cracked, a ghost of the endangered and enchanted ecosystem it once was. As we waited among the cypress knees, the last truck loaded with hardwoods was pulling away from the leveled landscape. So when Enviva lays claims of corporate sustainability measures, that they only rarely use whole trees, I can only recall these fallen ecosystems.

Not only does biomass fail to live up to its purported claims of sustainability, it diverts financial and political resources from real solutions and distracts us from pursuing a clean energy economy. We need to push decision makers to use sound science that protects the integrity of forests, prevents dirty and destructive practices, and incentivizes the development of truly clean energy. We do need to move away from conventional fossil fuels, but cutting down trees to burn for energy isn’t a step forward. Deforestation doesn’t have a place in our energy portfolio. This shortsighted industry is causing irreparable harm, so Dogwood Alliance is partnering with communities across the South to show decision makers that we’re not going to stand for it.

This summer, the SOS Tour to Save Our Southern Forests will be stopping in major port cities along the Southeastern coast. We’ll be hosting fun and interactive visibility events and community meetings, communicating the destructive practices of wood pellet manufacturing facilities, and documenting our beautiful Southern forests along the way. For example, In Savannah, GA and Wilmington, NC, community members will join to form a giant human banner and send an SOS directly to European policymakers. We want you to join us. If you’re in any of the SOS Tour cities, we hope to see you there with us, celebrating our forests. If not, you can still engage with the campaign: join the tour virtually on Facebook and send an SOS to President Juncker of the European Commission.