French Government Makes Forests Count!

France jumped way out in front in the campaign to Make Forests Count today!

In a very bold environmental move, the French climate Ambassador Brice Lalonde served notice to the rest of the European Union that it would be opposing the EU's current position in support of a logging loophole in the Copenhagen Climate Agreement that would allow countries to hide increased emissions from logging, thereby weakening their targets.

France's proposal is for the EU to agree to collectively account for all changes in emissions in its forests since 1990 - the year for which all other sectors are measured. The EU member states that have argued this would result in too many emissions on their books would be helped by sharing the 'burden' of these impacts across all EU countries. France has specifically stepped up to shoulder some of the burden from emissions in other countries.

France made the proposal formally tonight at an EU heads of state meeting in Brussels. If France succeeds in turning the EU's position, it would be a *huge* boost to making forests count in the Copenhagen climate agreement and remove one of the irritant loopholes that undermine real action on climate change.

I had the pleasure to sit in the conference room of the French delegation's office while Ambassador Lalonde made the statement to the press. It was very exciting because, as a colleague put it, "This is a really green move by France in an area usually filled with unrelenting cheating and gloom." This really was the most positive development in the last three years on this issue. I was even moved to congratulate the Ambassador in a French that I can only assume was considered cute rather than convincing.

The move earned France the Ray of the Day award, a new award started by the Climate Action Network at the Copenhagen Climate Conference to honour truly exceptional acts of green that push the negotiations forward.

Here's a story from AFP.

What does bioenergy forest harvesting look like to you?

The following is a guest blog post from Jamie Simpson, Ecology Action Centre

Forest biomass is being touted as a renewable and green energy source in Nova Scotia. It's also being championed by some as a way to help meet the province's renewable energy target of 25% by 2015.

But how green is it? I recently toured a biomass harvest carried out by Northern Pulp in central Nova Scotia. It was the worst 'harvesting' I've seen in my time as a forester, and a blatant transgression of the NS Watercourse and Wildlife Habitat Protection Regulations. Is this the future of "green" energy in Nova Scotia?

I have posted photos of the harvest site so you can see for yourself.

Northern Pulp is an affiliate of Atlas Holdings LLC and Blue Wolf Capital Management LLC. (Atlas Holdings LLC • One Sound Shore Drive, Suite 203 • Greenwich, CT, USA 06830; Phone: (203) 622-9138 • Fax: (203) 622-0151). The Chief Operating Officer for Northern Pulp is Mr. Wayne Gosse, tel: 902 752 9167. On March 26th, 2009, the NS Government loaned Northern Pulp $15 million, and called it a good investment.

Northern Pulp has a license to 80,000 hectares of Nova Scotia's Crown land, and has an agreement to manage Neenah Paper's 195,000 hectares of private land. The harvest in these photos was carried out on Neenah's private land.

This operation by Northern Pulp is certified as "green" by SFI (Sustainable Forestry Initiative). The 2008 SFI audit report stated that "The audit found that Northern Pulp Nova Scotia Corporation’s SFM system: (1) was in full conformance with the requirements of the ISO 14001 and SFI standards included within the scope of the audit, except where noted otherwise in this report...". The minor issues the audit team had with Northern Pulp had nothing to do with poor harvesting practices. The report does note, however, that "Northern Pulp has significantly increased the amount of on-site chipping that it undertakes."

Please feel free to pass these photos on; they are an embarrassment to Nova Scotia, but need to be widely seen.