Enviva Launches $5 Million Forest Conservation Fund

(Enviva/Biomass Magazine) Enviva Holdings LP, the world’s largest producer of wood pellets, recently announced it is establishing the Enviva Forest Conservation Fund, a $5 million, 10-year program designed to protect tens of thousands of acres of bottomland forests in northeast North Carolina and southeast Virginia.

The Enviva Forest Conservation Fund, administered by the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities, will award matching-fund grants to nonprofit organizations to permanently protect ecologically sensitive areas and conserve working forests. The $5 million Enviva Forest Conservation Fund will focus on the Virginia-North Carolina coastal plain, an area that is home to three wood pellet production facilities and a deep-water marine terminal owned by Enviva.

The Enviva Forest Conservation Fund will focus on about 35 North Carolina and Virginia counties that include about 6 million acres of forests of all types. Of this total, about 20 percent are bottomland forests—low-lying, marshy areas near rivers and streams that are home to tree species such as cypress, gum and oak. Many of these bottomlands are in the Albemarle Sound drainage basin along the Roanoke, Chowan, Meherrin, Nottoway and Blackwater rivers.

Although the vast majority of Enviva’s wood supply does not come from bottomland forests, the Enviva Forest Conservation Fund is targeting these areas because they offer a wide range of environmental and economic benefits. They also face a number of potential threats, including conversion to other uses.

Permanently protecting sensitive bottomland forests is the cornerstone of the Enviva Forest Conservation Fund. Enviva will contribute $5 million to the fund in annual installments over 10 years. The Enviva Forest Conservation Fund’s goal is to be a catalyst that will attract other conservation investments to the region, with the goal of conserving 35,000 acres of bottomland forests.

Each year, the Endowment will solicit grant applications, asking qualified organizations to identify specific bottomland tracts that are eligible for protection. Grants will be awarded annually, starting in 2016. The Enviva Forest Conservation Fund will consider a variety of protection strategies, including purchasing land via fee or conservation easement, and grant making priority will be given to organizations that bring matching funds.

“The Enviva Forest Conservation Fund will be particularly appealing to landowners because it provides them a financially attractive alternative to selling their land for development or converting it to other uses,” Owen said. “Many have owned their land for generations and want to keep it in forest cover. The Enviva Forest Conservation Fund will help make this possible.”

To produce wood pellets, Enviva does not use high-grade wood (also called saw logs) that could be milled into furniture or lumber. Enviva uses only low-grade or leftover materials such as crooked or diseased trees, limbs, tops, chips and sawdust, and where markets allow, pulpwood. Enviva does not accept wood that is harvested from old growth forests or other sensitive areas.

To prioritize grant-making opportunities for the Enviva Forest Conservation Fund, the Endowment identified four distinct ecosystems worthy of conservation: cypress-tupelo swamps, Atlantic white cedar stands, pocosins and Carolina bays. READ MORE