Dogwood Alliance Inc

Organizing: At the state, and local levels, North Carolina continued to be a top priority for our organizing in 2024. Our work coordinating the Impacted Communities Against Wood Pellets continued to achieve results. NCDAQ required Enviva to reduce the fugitive dust pollution from its export facility in Wilmington. We launched a new effort demanding that NCDAQ require Enviva to do the same at all of its wood pellet mills in North Carolina. We organized a conference in Georgia with 9 organizations attended by over 200 people, Biomass was at the top of the agenda. Thus far, the organizing and legal strategies around the proposed wood pellet mills in Adel, Georgia have led to an indefinite delay in construction. This year we reached out to the community impacted by a wood pellet mill owned by FRAM in Lumber City which planned to expand production. The local opposition combined with a legal strategy resulted in the permit for that expansion being revoked. Over 80 residents in the small town of Gloster showed up to the public hearing to oppose Draxs permit to expand production. Meanwhile, Enviva was denied a local economic development grant in Mississippi, shuttering plans to expand wood pellet production in the state.

Conservation: Our work to proactively protect forests through establishing community- owned forests has been focused in the Pee Dee Watershed of South Carolina. Against the backdrop of a culture that has largely accepted the working forest conservation and economic model, Dogwood Alliance and our local partners are charting a new course that puts community-led forest protection at the center of our conservation and rural economic development agenda. This work gained significant momentum in 2024 with the acquisition of 305 acres of wetland forests, including old-growth cypress, on the Little Pee Dee River. In partnership with New Alpha Community Development Corporation, we also initiated the development of a Justice Conservation Fund for Southern Forests and Communities to expand the acquisition of community forests throughout the South in areas impacted by the wood pellet biomass industry.