Biomass for bioenergy: using wastelands for future
BIOSAFOR project workshop
July 20-22, 2008

A project workshop for the BIOSAFOR (Biosaline Agro-Forestry) project was held at ICBA, Dubai, from July 20-22, 2008. The project is funded by the European Commission (6^th framework program) and is undertaken in seven countries, including United Arab Emirates. The Netherlands, Germany and Spain are the other partners (from Europe), whereas, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan represent the DEV (Developed) countries. OASE Foundation, Netherlands has the overall role of the ‘Project Coordinator’. The International Center for Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA) serves as the coordinating unit for the DEV country partners and also is a member of the Project Executive Committee, with Dr. Shoaib Ismail serving as the ‘Regional Coordinator’.

The overall objective of the BIOSAFOR project is twofold:

1. To contribute to the development of biosaline agro-forestry systems for various saline environments (local/regional approach); and
2. To explore the potentials and options for biomass production in saline environments (globally)

These two objectives on a larger scale look at the potential of growing tree species on saline wastelands and/or with saline water to produce ‘biomass’. The biomass can then be converted into ‘bio-energy’ and other useful forms that are economically viable and environmentally friendly. Carbon-sequestration from marginal areas will have a very big role in future when scarcity of fresh water will have a significant impact on agriculture and afforestation programs.

The project has different work packages that deal from evaluation of salt tolerant tree germplasms to case study areas in partner countries. Data of these will be over-layed with GIS and imageries data to identify wastelands in the region and on global scale. This will quantify the potential oF using these wastelands to produce biomass-for-bioenergy.

The meeting was attended by 9 senior scientists from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and the Netherlands in addition to scientists from ICBA. The workshop discussed the progress of the work, identified the gaps and constraints and strategies to overcome them. The group looked closely at the fine details of the case study area(s) to extrapolate results on larger scale. Deliberations were held in detail on the economics of using such wastelands, the potential markets for the products and the technologies to convert biomass into useful products.