Dogwood Alliance

Dogwood Alliance is an American environmental nonprofit organization based in Asheville, North Carolina. Dogwood Alliance mobilizes diverse voices to protect Southern forests and communities from destructive industrial logging. For over 20 years, Dogwood Alliance has worked with diverse communities, partner organizations and decision-makers to protect Southern forests across 14 states. They do this through community and grassroots organizing, holding corporations and governments accountable and working to conserve millions of acres of Southern forests.

History

1996 Dogwood Alliance is formed: destructive logging was on the rise, and in response, grassroots environmental activists and leaders from impacted communities around the region joined forces to found Dogwood Alliance. Dogwood Alliance and partners elevated the impacts on the southeast to a national level and forced federal and state agencies to study the impact industrial logging was having on the environment and economy of the South.

2000 The Paper Campaign: Combining grassroots activism and savvy negotiation, Dogwood Alliance took the campaign directly to the largest retailers of paper products and their suppliers in the paper industry. The first campaign was on the office supply industry, followed by the fast food packaging industry, and finally to the largest paper companies in the world, International Paper. Since then, they have transformed the practices of some of the largest consumers of paper in the world as well as four of the top five paper producers, increasing protection for over 90 million acres of Southern forests.

2008 Carbon Canopy Project: Working in partnership with Staples, Dogwood Alliance initiated the Carbon Canopy Project, an innovative collaborative of large consumers and producers of paper, forest landowners, and conservation organizations working to expand forest conservation and FSC certification on private forestlands in the Southern US. The project led to increased protection for thousands of acres of forests in the Southern Appalachians and generated several new initiatives across the region.

2013 Our Forests Aren't Fuel Campaign: Responding to the new threat of bioenergy - burning trees to provide power to Europe, Dogwood Alliance responded with the Our Forests Aren’t Fuel Campaign. The Our Forests Aren't Fuel Campaign educates policy makers and the public in Europe and in the US about the dangers of biomass; works with frontline communities in the South to pass moratoriums against proposed mills and develop alternative economic pathways; educates the financial investment sector about the biomass industry’s practices; supports alternative and competitive energy sources like solar and wind; puts pressure on companies who stand to gain from this practice to put a stop to it; builds a movement for forest protection across the South.

2017 Wetland Forest Initiative: Witnessing the large-scale loss of our wetland forests to industrial logging and development, Dogwood Alliance launched the Wetland Forest Initiative, a coalition of diverse partner and community groups with the vision to protect 35 million acres across 14 states–the first conservation effort of its kind in the Southern US.

2017 Forests & Climate: Natural forests are the most efficient climate-stabilizing technology we have. Forest protection in the US, though, is not seen as a climate priority even though the US is the largest producer and consumer of wood products. Instead, government and industry often promote increased logging as a climate solution. Dogwood Alliance responded with their Forests & Climate work, calling for a new wave of policies that recognize the indispensable benefits of standing forests, while demonstrating that greater protection and restoration of forests can create new economic opportunities for rural landowners and communities.

Campaign victories include Staples, Office Depot, and Bowater[1] and the group is working to encourage fast food chains to change their practices.[2]

References

  1. ↑ "Enviro Groups Update Office Supply Industry's Green Grades". Environmental Leader. 2008-04-07. Retrieved 2008-04-28.
  2. ↑ John Murawski (2008-02-13). "Activists Chide Yum Over Wrappers". The News & Observer. Archived from the original on 2008-09-05. Retrieved 2008-04-28.


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