Tell B.C. decision makers to cut ties with Drax

Logging old growth is bad enough – logging forests for wood pellets is unforgivable.

Last month, shocking documentaries from BBC and CBC revealed that UK-based energy giant Drax was logging forests in B.C. and shipping them halfway around the world to burn for electricity while claiming to use only waste wood.

Since these scandalous exposés, Drax executives are feeling the heat. Investors are dropping like flies and public officials could be next if we sustain public pressure.

Decision makers in British Columbia need to feel pressure to do the right thing: cut ties with Drax. The province has the most power over sourcing for forest biomass – namely, the Chief Forester Shane Berg who is responsible for deciding who gets to log, how much and where. So let’s make sure Berg, Minister of Forests Conroy and incoming Premier Eby hear us loud and clear.

Send an email calling Berg, Conroy and Eby to stop allowing forests from B.C. to be burned for electricity by corporations like Drax.

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Premier

David

Eby

B.C. NDP

Minister

David

Eby

BC NDP

Minister

Bruce

Ralston

B.C. NDP

Assistant Deputy Minister

Shane

Berg

BC Ministry of Forests

Dear {contact_data~title} {contact_data~lastName},

I was outraged to learn that Drax is logging and burning forests in B.C. for highly polluting electricity generation and branding it as 'clean energy'.

There is clear evidence from organizations, journalists, researchers and most recently BBC Panorama and CBC Fifth Estate that shows the “diseased and rotten” logs Drax claims only to use are a tiny percentage when looking at the Canadian Forestry database over the last year.

Drax has bought licenses, outbidding timber companies, to log primary forests (by the UN definition) in areas like British Columbia including in old growth ecosystems.

Former Chief Forester of B.C., Diane Nicholls’ sudden move from government to the VP of Sustainability for Drax North America is deeply concerning. In British Columbia, the biomass industry was granted harvesting rights to log for pellets in large part under her. This closeness usually precludes proper regulation.

It is deeply concerning that Drax now has a monopoly on forest biomass across the province, with a majority ownership in most BC pellet plants. It leaves me wondering, is Drax and cooperative governments (like the B.C. government) deliberately misleading the public using the language of ‘residuals’, ‘waste’ and ‘low-value’ logs?

The science is clear, that burning forest biomass is dirtier than coal at the smokestack. It takes many decades to centuries for forests to regain the majority of their carbon storage after being logged. International and national carbon accounting on this is flawed. Forests are most valuable in the fight against the climate crisis when they are kept standing.

To meet the scale of the crisis we face, we must move beyond burning. Wood pellets are the lowest value production for forest communities while simultaneously devastating ecosystems and the planet.

We deserve true investments in clean energy and climate protection that does not devalue and mechanize away union jobs and respects the land, as well as communities.

I look forward to hearing back from you.

Signed,
{user_data~First Name} {user_data~Last Name}

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