Presented as part of the workshop: South at the Steering Wheel – Improving sustainability in land investment for bioenergy in sub-Saharan Africa
29th May 2012, 08:00 – 17:30
Naturvårdsverket (Swedish EPA), Stockholm, Sweden
Speaker: Birka Wicke, Utrecht University (Netherlands)
The challenges of using degraded lands for bioenergy production is discussed by Birka Wicke, who:
- encourages research to define the positive effects of bioenergy production on such lands
- sees difficulty in correctly assessing the value of degraded land to rural communities, and the ecosystem services provided, as part of feasibility studies for bioenergy projects.
- emphasizes the risk that more commercial use of degraded land may result in water
- shortage, spreading of invasive drought-resistant species and other imbalances