Wisconsin Sustainable Planting and Harvest Guidelines for Non-forest Biomass? on Public and Private Lands
These Guidelines are an effort to encourage decision-making and land use practices that benefit farmers financially while protecting the state’s natural resources.
What is sustainability & why is it important?
There are many definitions of sustainability each supporting various principals and concepts. Essentially, however, sustainability can be described as 1) a set of goals; and 2) practices and behavior that support such goals. As a set of goals sustainability describes desired conditions of the environment and the ability of humans to receive benefits directly and indirectly from it, in the present as well as in the future. As practices and behaviors, sustainability describes human actions that support and enhance the human well-being derived through interaction with the environment, and which support the ability of human society to interact with the environment in ways that discourage reduced benefits. Sustainability is important because the choices and actions of today affect everything in the future. Sound decisions at present may prevent undesirable outcomes in the future.
Bioenergy? is frequently evoked as an important tool in improving environmental sustainability, as well as the sustainability of energy, agriculture, forestry and other sectors of human activity. However, much remains to be understood about the impacts of bioenergy on the environment and human society. Ultimately however, sustainability of bioenergy will depend on the goals defined (and when and where and by whom those goals are defined), what actions and behaviors people are willing and able to adopt to support those goals, and the ability of science to assist human knowledge of connections between the many aspects of bioenergy and sustainability goals.
Wisconsin Sustainable Planting and Harvest Guidelines for Nonforest Biomass
The Wisconsin Sustainable Planting and Harvest Guidelines for Nonforest Biomass is a collaborative effort of the WDNR, DATCP and UW-Madison to encourage decision-making and land use practices that benefits farmers financially while protecting the state’s natural resources.
Certification & branding
Currently there is no third-party certification for sustainably grown and harvested non-forest biomass? in Wisconsin. However, interest in establishing a system of third-party certification is growing. Certified projects under the Biomass Crop Assistance Program, however may implement sustainability criteria into future contracts with biomass producers…
