ZE: The industry is still young, but the sooner we do it the better. That doesn’t mean shortcutting the public process however because, as we mentioned in the Assessment of Biomass Harvesting Guidelines, you get more buy-in if people can engage in the process.  If everyone—the whole spectrum from environmentalists to industry—can engage in the process early then you’re more likely to get to a result that doesn’t get challenged in court and can actually be implemented. 

ZE: In the US, one of the things we’ve seen is that the lumber market is in the basement and there are cases where people are saying, “look, I can’t sell a sawlog to a traditional lumber market but there’s someone who’s willing to pay me to chip it up, so I’m going to chip it up.” And of course, the mantra in the US, at least until this year, has always been that the market decides. So if there’s a better price for chipping a nice sawlog, that’s what people are going to do. I think it will be fascinating for the forestry community to come to grips with this issue. Are we going to let the market decide about where the material gets utilized or are we going to say that the highest and best use takes priority? 

In the US, we’re finally getting on track with legislation to address climate change and we’re hoping that will include forestry. To the extent that solid wood products get some kind of carbon credit, climate legislation may discourage chipping sawlogs. Of course, governments are already involved in how people decide whether a particular piece of wood will go to an energy plant or to something else through renewable energy credits and other policies. 

ZE: Those are summarized in the recommendations we make. But if there is one take-home message, it’s that the forestry community, wherever it’s located, needs to think about this issue of increased biomass utilization and how it affects the forest. New biomass markets provide the opportunity to improve forest health and guidelines that protect water quality, wildlife, soils, and site productivity will help us seize that opportunity. 

ZE: Definitely. One of the things we’re thinking about now is how we can help states that are in the process of developing guidelines. In addition, we’re very interested in technology transfer. Our members are consulting foresters or land managers and they want to know how to harvest biomass sustainably. We plan to have workshops out in the forest to talk about what it looks like when you’re following the guidelines. What does it look like after a biomass harvest if you didn’t follow the guidelines? Loggers and foresters need to have a sense of how this happens in the woods. Lastly, we’re working on developing community wood energy projects where low-value wood from local landowners is sustainably harvested and used to heat schools, libraries, or hospitals.