Sustainable Forestry
The destruction of forests, particularly ancient forests with immense biodiversity, is an ongoing crisis for humanity. The problem is mainly centred in regions with growing populations and continued poverty. It doesn’t have to be this way if forests are properly managed.
River Basin Energy cannot reverse the problem of deforestation, but we have chosen to ensure that we do no harm. In practice this means that we ensure that our biomass supplies come from forests where the land has been used for managed forestry for at least a generation, preferably longer. We also look beyond our own suppliers and try to see if there is a risk that the forest cultivations we are using have had an indirect impact on adjacent land use. This is a difficult process: We cannot be certain, but we certainly try our best. Most particularly, we favour forest regions which are actually growing in forest density, for example Southern USA, Canada and the Nordic region. This gives us confidence that our operations can be sustained indefinitely.
For further reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_forest_management
http://www.forestindustries.eu/content/sustainable-forest-management-sfm
http://www.fern.org
http://www.fs.fed.us