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Ensuring Forest Sustainability in the Development of Wood Biofuels and Bioenergy: Implications for Federal and State Policies

On February 9-10, 2009, the Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment
(Heinz Center) and the Pinchot Institute for Conservation (Pinchot Institute) convened a
dialogue session focusing on the intersection of policies affecting biomass-based energy
and those concerning forest policy and management.1 This meeting was convened as the
first in a dialogue series intended to help ensure that, as the nation expands its capacity
for production of forest-based energy sources, it will do so in a manner that promotes the
use of biomass harvesting as a valuable conservation tool and minimizes negative
unintended environmental, economic, and social consequences. The meeting brought
together stakeholders from the energy and forest products industries, forest landowners,
nongovernmental organizations, state and federal regulators and managers, and other
experts.
The dialogue was intended to identify a small suite of issues of concern to participants
and to lay the groundwork for future discussions. Four related issues rise to this level:

the need to ensure sustainability of bioenergy in general and of feedstock production in particular

disparate policy treatment of different bioenergy technologies and feedstocks,potentially resulting in failure to take advantage of the most efficient and environmentally advantageous approaches

the fragmented nature of the bioenergy policy framework, with sometimes inconsistent purposes, objectives, and requirements

identification of what is needed to better evaluate policy development strategies.

Bioenergy Category
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