The Black River stretches for around 80kms through North Carolina and lies in an area of spectacular natural beauty.

These wetland forests are a haven of biodiversity and a variety of trees, including dogwoods, oak and cypress trees.

But they – and their surrounding forests and the ecosystems they support - are under threat by the European Union’s energy demands, with the harvesting of hardwoods to feed EU bioenergy demand forecast to increase, according to a recent study published by the European Commission.

This wetland forest by the Roanoke River has been clearcut, revealing that there is little control over how highly biodiverse forests are being managed.

The southern forests of the Unites States are being logged at four times the rate of South America’s rainforests. Most of these forests are on private land and the destruction is happening with few rules and little oversight.

These hardwoods have been clearcut for Enviva, the world’s largest wood pellet manufacturer, which has production plants in nearby towns Ahoskie, North Carolina and Southampton, Virginia.

Richly diverse forests are being razed and converted into monoculture pine plantations. Among the wreckage of tree stumps new pine shoots can be seen. This can cause significant biodiversity loss as well as changes to the carbon stored belowground, as the EC study showed.

The damage to ecosystems and the once flourishing wildlife here is irreparable.

Wood is piled high before being pulverized into dried pellets mostly for shipment to Europe.

Each year the Enviva plant in Southampton Virginia has a production capacity of 510,000 metric tons of pellets. Around 85 per cent of the US wood pellet exports go to the UK and most are burned at Drax, the country’s biggest power station.

Up in Flames - How biomass burning wrecks Europe’s forests, reveals how forests across Europe and in the US are being pillaged and their wood used for energy because of EU policies for promoting renewable electricity and heating with the aim to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

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