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A common industry claim is: only trees that “have no other use” are used in bioenergy.
Difficult to counter if we don´t know the actual trees we are talking about. They are often precious for biodiversity with no adequate safeguards to prevent them being logged. 1/11
A common industry claim is: only trees that “have no other use” are used in bioenergy.
Difficult to counter if we don´t know the actual trees we are talking about. They are often precious for biodiversity with no adequate safeguards to prevent them being logged. 1/11
Rather rare European White Elm has “no other use” in industry. It would end up being burned to meet bioenergy goals if logged while clearcut - a most common logging method practiced in 30 thousand hectares in Estonia annually. 2/11
Same is true for maples, willows and in many cases even oak trees that are widely rejected on species bases. In fact only 4 or 6 (depending on the region) out of 51 native tree species have industrial use in other segments than bioenergy. 3/11
Also common trees often end up being burnt. This spruce is huge - over a meter in diameter and therefore does not meet the industry standards in sawmills. Large logs end up in “no other use” pile quite often, despite the evident enormous wrongdoing from a carbon perspective. 4/11
Ironically sometimes the logs are too large even for graders in the biomass processing. These large trunks of aspen are set aside in a chipwood yard for their size. Why log them in the first place? 5/11
This is a dead spruce that had root rot and bark beetle invading it and it lost the fight. Passing it last spring I took a piece of bark off it and the tiniest bird nest I ever saw fell out with 3 small eggs. 6/11
I accidentally destroyed a treecreeper nest. I feel terribly sorry for the birds, but take joy of the fact that this tree still has a lot to offer to hundreds of forest species before it decomposes. 7/11
This huge aspen has holes in it created probably by grey-headed woodpeckers now used by different creatures. Its lower part is likely hollow inside and the shape asymmetrical, making it a typical “no other use” tree. Nevertheless birds and lichen seem to appreciate it. 8/11
When hearing “have no other use” for trees, it nearly always means they are not the standard industry is desiring in higher steps on the hierarchy. But there is always an unvoiced prejudgment in place that they have to go out of the forest, to make room for young trees. 9/11
Millions of trees are logged because of these considerations in Estonian forests every year. They are turned into bioenergy domestically, but also in growing numbers in other EU countries. 10/11
In reality they do have “other use”. An important one. They are capable of hosting and feeding a huge range of species and store massive amounts of carbon. This role unfortunately is not properly incentivised while logging and burning them is heavily subsidised. 11/11
