The Skidder Online

Public Engagement Survey

Dear Skidders: In order to have “productive” forests we must have forests. The best way to ensure forests for the future is public support for forest retention policies. To garner support from decision makers and the general public they must understand and appreciate the economic and ecological values of forests; such as wood products, clean water, recreation opportunities, and carbon storage.

Our public engagement group would like to engage the public on the high-profile topic of carbon storage in forests and forest products. We feel that our message should reflect the general consensus of our group so prior to us implementing a strategy we’d like to engage the Skidder group on this topic via a simple survey on aspects of this topic. Results of the survey will be unveiled at the 8/14 working dinner (we hope).

This is an anonymous survey so individual survey results will not be presented. In order to maintain the anonymity of individual survey results we have two options; once Matt has compiled the data and submitted it to us we can send him to a Tibetan monastery committed to a 25-year vow of silence or we can simply trust him not to divulge the results. Perhaps we can vote on these options at the August meeting!

Click here or cut and paste the following into your web browser address field.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=ln9GFOBOl_2f5t2g2RAoO5Jw_3d_3d

REQUEST for feedback!

Hi: I have one request and one resource to pass on. 

1. I have asked Rik Aikman, Environmental Coordinator for Buchanan Forest Products in Ontario and chair of the Ontario SFI Implementation Committee, to address our project on the topic of "Challenges facing the Forest Products Industry in Ontario.”  He will do this through a guest commentary on the Skidder.  Would you please hit the “comment” button below and list any specific questions that you would like Rik to address?  Please post your questions by Wednesday, July 30, so I can forward them to Rik in a timely manner.


2. Biomass Commodity Exchange:  I thought you might be interested in this recent announcement out of Madison, WI regarding the implementation of the Biomass Commodity Exchange (BCEX) project.  The project is charged with “creating an implementation plan for a commodity exchange as a means to increase the efficiency of the supply chain providing biomass to the existing biobased fuels industries and the emerging concept of the forest biorefinery”. The implementation plan will also examine “the future trade of closed-loop energy crops, such as willow, poplar and switchgrass and as an approach to offset CO2 emissions through synergies created with other regulated exchanges such as the Chicago Climate Exchange.  Organizers of the effort are seeking public and trade input to the business plan for a woody biomass commodity exchange.

NEW Webinar: Carbon in A Working Forest Setting

Hi all: I’m pleased to announce another online webinar for the Seeing the Forest AND the Trees Project:  “Carbon in A Working Forest Setting:  Garcia River Forest, CA.”

The webinar will be presented by Evan Smith, Director of Forest Projects at The Conservation Fund. Below please find Evan’s bio and articles about the project that Evan will focus on during the webinar .  Many thanks to Tom Duffus for arranging this! 

The webinar will take place Friday, Sept. 12, at 10 am CST.  Please RSVP to Lisa if you are able to participate.

Log-in information will be distributed at a later time.

Hope you’re having a great summer, Matt

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Related Files

• High Country News Article
• Los Angeles Times New Article
• Wall Stree Journal News Article 
• Evan's Biography

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Another interesting article!

Hi: I thought the the article, The Giving Trees might clarify some confusion out there about carbon sequestration, specifically, confusion over stocks of carbon vs fluxes of carbon.  Old forests have large carbon stocks and smaller carbon fluxes for the most part.  The article talks about some of these issues and the state of the science in this field. Thanks, Tom

Nancy Berlin Comments on Iggesund Fossil Fuel Reduction Article

Nancy Berlin here! I have some comments about the article Jim discusses in his post to the Skidder Online last week.

In the article the Sweden-based Iggesund Paperboard reports reducing its use of fossil fuel by 75% and drastically cutting carbon dioxide emissions.

With the recently passed Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, I know federal Agencies will be looking at 20% reduction in petroleum consumption and a 10% increase in alternative fuels along with 30% reduction in energy used in federal buildings by 2015.

We will all be looking at models like Iggesund Paperboard to build our future. If you didn't get a chance to read the article, you can find the article link by clicking on Sweden or GlobalWarming in the "tag cloud" on the upper left-hand corner of any page on the Skidder Online.

One last thing! There are other web-based resources that Jim would like to share with you. You can find the link to them in his learning log.

Thanks everyone,

Nancy