The environmental non-profit Stand.earth fails to see the wooden from the timber with regards to the Canadian forestry trade and Drax’s restricted function inside it (Drax nonetheless burning 250-year-old timber sourced from forests in Canada, specialists say, 9 November). We don’t personal forests or sawmills, and we don’t resolve what areas are permitted for harvesting.
The overwhelming majority (81%) of our Canadian fibre got here from sawdust and different sawmill residues created when sawmills produce wooden merchandise utilized in development and different industries in 2024. The remaining 19% of our fibre got here from forest residues, together with low-grade roundwood, tops, branches and bark.
Forests in British Columbia are harvested for lumber by timber firms below strict laws set by the province’s authorities in joint decision-making with indigenous First Nations. Round 94% of the province’s forests are on public land, and it’s a authorized requirement for these websites to be reforested in a free-growing situation. Leaving Canada’s forests unmanaged will not be the reply to preserving these landscapes. We witnessed this in Jasper, Alberta final 12 months when a wildfire on unmanaged land led to $880m in damages and important quantities of CO2 launched into the ambiance.
The fibre highlighted in Stand.earth’s report was low-grade roundwood, which was rejected by sawmills following permitted harvesting. With out the biomass sector utilizing this harvest residue, it will doubtless be controllably burned on web site to assist mitigate wildfire threat. It is much better to positively use this residual fibre to generate renewable electrical energy. Not one of the fibre highlighted on this report got here from a delegated previous progress administration space or previous progress deferral space.Miguel Veiga-PestanaChief sustainability officer, Drax Group plc
The UK has a hard-won repute for international forest safety, due to its management when it hosted COP in 2021. It’s a bitter irony that within the run-up to a local weather convention hosted within the Amazon, the UK authorities has signed a brand new contract to pay billions in subsidies to Drax (Drax energy plant to go on incomes ‘over £1m a day’ from burning wooden pellets, 5 November). Drax burns thousands and thousands of tonnes of timber yearly, with reporting on this newspaper exhibiting it’s nonetheless burning timber over 250 years previous from Canada.
Whereas claiming to nonetheless be a forest chief, the UK spends billions supporting an trade that harms them. This contradiction exposes the federal government’s hole claims of environmental management. Burning imported biomass is not any credible local weather answer; it merely shifts emissions and destruction elsewhere.
If Britain really needs to guide on nature and local weather, it should cease financing forest loss below the guise of “inexperienced” vitality and reclaim the mantle of forest management to guard ecosystems. Public cash ought to restore and protect forests – not reward those that destroy them.Matt WilliamsSenior forest advocate for NRDC (Pure Sources Protection Council)
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