ENDANGERED FORESTS

Endangered Forests are the most valuable forests on the globe and are being severely impacted by the paper industry. Given that scientists are still in the process of identifying all endangered forest areas, it is imperative that the paper industry exercise the Precautionary Principle and take steps to ensure that paper products are not made with fiber that is derived from endangered forests.

At the present time, three policies that are part of the solution include:

1. maximizing the use of recycled and non-wood fibers
2. utilizing wood fiber that originates from forests that are certified according to strict ecological criteria (Forest Stewardship Council [FSC] or equivalent)
3. ensuring that non-certified wood fiber does not originate from endangered forest areas

Endangered Forest Definitions

1. Naturally Rare Forests are limited to very small areas of the globe and contain very rare/unique biodiversity (example: temperate rainforests of British Colombia-Canada)
2. Intact Frontier Forests are forests unaffected by large-scale human activities over time periods long enough to allow ecological processes to determine natural forest structure, species composition and function (ex: Areas within boreal Canada, Indonesia, Alaska)
3. Anthropogenically Rare Forests include forests in an ecoregion where at least 70% of original forest type has already been converted. (ex: longleaf and pine forest of U.S. Southeast)
4. Other Ecologically Important Forests: are located ecoregions where <30% of the original forest is remaining and include remnant patches of undeveloped primary and old growth forest, as well as secondary forests that serve as core habitat, important corridors, or buffer zones for highly threatened, threatened and vulnerable native species

Endangered Forest Statistics
U.S. Southeast

1. The Southern U.S., which contains the most biologically diverse forests in North America is the largest paper-producing region in the world. (See, USDA Forest Service Southern Forest Resource Assessment 2001 -- hereinafter: USFS, SFRA 2001)
2. The paper industry is the largest consumer of forests in the Southern US, currently logging an estimated 5 million acres of forests (an area the size of New Jersey) each year. (See, USFS SFRA 2001)
3. Tree plantations feeding the 156 chip mills in the South (110 of them built since 1990) now make up almost 40 percent of all pine stands in the southeastern U.S., and within twenty years, if current trends continue, tree plantations will make up 70 percent. (Ted Williams, “False Forests,” Mother Jones May/June 2000, p. 73)
4. Rural communities where the paper industry is concentrated are economically worse off than other rural communities, experiencing higher levels of poverty and unemployment and lower expenditures on public education. (USFS, SFRA 2001)

Canada

1. Temperate rainforests are the most endangered forest type on the planet (World Resources Institute, 1997)
2. British Columbia is home to a quarter of the world’s remaining ancient temperate rainforests (World Resources Institute, 1997)
3. 90% of the logging in British Columbia (BC) occurs in ancient forests (BC Ministry of Forests).
4. Over 40% of the trees cut in BC are used to produce paper (Markets Initiative, 2001)
5. In the Canadian Boreal forest (endangered forest region located in the northern interior), over 60% of the trees logged are used to produce paper (Markets Initiative, 2001)

Indonesia and Latin America

1. Pulp production has more than quadrupled in the last decade, more than 1.4 million hectares of natural forest have been replaced by plantations. (Worldwatch Institute, “Paper Cuts” Abramovitz, 1999, p. 25)
2. Satellite data shows that 80 percent of the fires that burned over 2 million hectares of Indonesian forest in 1997 and 1998 were set mainly to clear land for palm oil and pulpwood plantations. (“The Year the World Caught Fire”, Nature December 1997)
3. Paper pulp exports from Latin America from forests converted into plantations and from the harvesting and conversion of tropical and subtropical forests are expected to grow 70 percent between 2000 and 2010. (Mark Payne, “Latin America Aims High for the Next Century, Pulp and Paper International 1999)