Story by David Knight,
Co-Publisher/Executive Editor
According to the propaganda gushing from the Dogwood Alliance (DA) these days, the South’s forests are once again being systematically destroyed, this time to feed the upstart and expanding wood bioenergy industry. The idea of converting harvested trees and chips to pellets and shipping them to Europe, where utilities blend and burn them with coal to generate electricity, is destructive, dirty and shameful, the Asheville, NC-based organization declares.
This is the same group that vigorously opposed the spread of satellite chip mills in the region 20 years ago, specifically new facilities that pulp/paper companies and chip export interests sought to build along waterways in areas controlled by the Tennessee Valley Authority. DA maintained such mills would lead to the clear-cutting of natural hardwood stands in Tennessee and Kentucky.
Dogwood rolled out its “Our Forests Aren’t Fuel” campaign in theatrical style on May 28, the same day the Wall Street Journal carried a front-page article that denigrated the rapidly developing wood-to-energy market being driven to date by EU utility companies. The piece insinuated that fiber demand from mid-Atlantic coastal pellet plants is resulting in the massive clear-cutting of mature hardwood stands growing in sensitive wetlands. DA helped the newspaper develop its story.
Interestingly, some industry observers hint that employees of certain paper companies who operate well-established mills in coastal Virginia and North Carolina, and who compete with new pellet markets for fiber, may have helped fuel the negative account. This may be a stretch; or is it? For the record, Dogwood is celebrating an agreement it recently struck with International Paper, through which the group advertises that the parties will “work together to map forests around IP’s southeastern operations to identify whether any endangered forests or high conservation value areas exist. This mapping will help ensure that IP is not sourcing from any endangered forests as per company policy and will also identify mutually-agreed upon areas where conservation can be focused.” Time will tell if this turns out to be a useful PR move or a mis-step with a rattlesnake.
It’s true that some clear-cutting is underway along the mid-Atlantic coast, and yes, some is ongoing in sensitive hardwood stands in wetlands, but they are not being largely wiped out as suggested by WSJ editors and DA staffers. None of the naysayers acknowledge that sensitive wetlands have been logged in the area for decades, with the logs ending up as veneer, lumber, crossties and pulp/paper. They do not acknowledge that forest products and pulp/paper manufacturers, being good stewards, for generations have burned sawdust and bark to produce electricity and steam. They do not point out that pine, which is more plentiful than hardwood in the region, is the fiber of choice among the South’s current and coming industrial pellet plants. Nor do they acknowledge that the South-to-EU pellet trade is limited—not by fiber availability but by port access constraints and pulpwood market economics. Pellet manufacturing carries with it considerable risks, and as I understand it, is not that profitable. Any pellet company that gets into a price battle with pulp/paper interests over pulpwood will lose.
Given the “massive fuel needs of these energy companies,” the radical group claims that regional logging activity (“destruction” in Dogwoodese) could double in the foreseeable future. This is utter nonsense. There are perhaps a dozen industrial pellet plants currently operating in the South, with perhaps a dozen more under construction and another 10 or so that have been announced. Should all these and even a few more be built—a very long shot—and if they collectively required 25 million green tons of wood fiber annually, the amount would be about 30% more than what the region’s OSB mills required in 2008, according to benchmark data presented in past issues of International Wood Fiber Report. As I recall, OSB plants came on line with no noticeable disruption in the supply chain.
The dogwood crowd probably doesn’t realize it and likely could care less, but not that long ago when the economy was sizzling and when dozens of more sawmills, panel plants and pulp/paper mills were operating and wood bioenergy was an embryo, the forest products industry consumed much more fiber than it does today. Between 2005 and 2011, consumption dropped from around 500 million tons per year to around 330 million, according to the U.S. Forest Service, the United Nations and private analysts.
All the while, forest inventories were significantly expanding. With rising building products demand, steady pulp/paper demand, and with pellet and chip demand on the rise, consumption could top 350-360 million tons in 2013. Hooray! Increasing consumption is good. Both old and new markets keep private landowners in the tree growing game and provide the impetus for forest sustainability. Good markets keep the wheels turning.
It’s interesting to note the dance Dogwood does when it comes to the term “forests.” On one hand, it doesn’t regard tree farms as forests, reserving that definition for natural mixed softwood/hardwood stands, yet in its current campaign it chooses not to highlight that distinction. It also refers to the forests as “our,” as in possessive. To the best of my knowledge, this group doesn’t own a single forested acre, yet seeks to influence the types of forests that may be harvested, the conditions of the harvest, and the end use of the harvest, trampling private property rights in the process. The truth is the Dogwood Alliance actually wants all logging suspended, period. Its wood-to-energy attack is merely a convenient means toward that goal. Watch your step IP.