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Wood Bioenergy and Forest Sustainability
Two major national priorities-mitigating climate change through the
reduction of fossil fuel emissions, and greater energy security through
increased use of domestic renewable energy, have expanded the demands
on US forests for wood-based bioenergy. This approach to producing
energy may decrease forest degradation from loggers taking only the
largest trees of the forest to cutting, previously, less desirable
timber. However, this approach may have negative consequences as well.
The Pinchot Institute, in collaboration with a myriad of other
interested groups, is convening a national dialogue to help guide the
development of wood-based bioenergy as a major energy source. The
dialogue aims to develop and implement an effective strategy for
identifying and characterizing the potential risks to conservation
values arising from wood-based bioenergy development, and establish
safeguards that will minimize these risks.
The dialogue, which will take place in several sessions throughout 2007
and 2008, will not only include the conservation community, but also
key organizations from among energy, agricultural, and sustainable
forestry interests, so that all stakeholders have a chance to voice
their opinion.
So the question is not will there be an expansion in wood-based
bioenergy, but how the expansion will occur so as to maximize its value
for progress toward an ecologically, economically, and socially
sustainable energy future.
Project Leader: V. Alaric Sample, President
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