-------------- Original message from Donna Buell <[log in to unmask]>: --------------

Wally highlights an internal discussion going on in Sierra Club, I believe.  On the one hand, why not use this "forest waste" for energy?  Native Americans managed forests for millennia.  On the other hand, are we creating a market for a product that will grow beyond just "recycling waste"?  Corn ethanol started out as a waste product of high fructose corn syrup, for example.

Donna

On Aug 16, 2009, at 9:30 AM, Wallace Taylor wrote:

This announcement is basically generalities. The real importance will be in the details. I hope there really is a new perspective toward forests. Vilsack has always been a corporate lackey so I think we need to be vigilant.

 

One point did fly out at me. He talks of using forests as a source for biofuels. This seems to continue the view of foresters that forests are crops to be planted, managed and harvested for human consumption, not as a part of the ecosystem in their own right.

 

Wally Taylor

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