Re-source: market alternatives to ancient forest destruction, part two of three

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Executive summary: Ancient forests are one of the earth's most precious natural treasures.The world's last remaining ancient forests - in the Amazon, Canada and Russia among other countries - have developed over thousands, if not millions of years, and nurture ecological and climate processes upon which biodiversity and human life depend.Around 80% of the world's original ancient forests have already been destroyed or degraded - and 39% of what remains is under threat, mostly from logging to satisfy global demand for paper and timber. The principal markets for these products are in North America, Europe and Japan, which together consume over half of the world's industrial timber and over two-thirds of its paper.Demand is growing: by 2010, the amount of industrial roundwood extracted from the world's forests is expected to increase by 26% compared to 1995 levels.RE-SOURCING AWAY FROM ANCIENT FORESTSA growing choice of alternatives Replacements already exist for virtually every application of wood from ancient forests - from building construction to product packaging. Many alternative approaches or products are recent arrivals on the market, yet technological advances, environmental pressures and government intervention are ensuring that the sophistication and range of alternative products is likely to grow in coming years.A long list of leading companies in Europe and the USA have already responded to consumer pressure or concerns about ancient forest destruction: Sweden's IKEA Group, UK's Meyer International (largest timber importer and trader) and B and Q; Germany's OBI and Praktiker, and the US's Home Depot, Union Carbide Corporation, Kimberly-Clark, 3M, IBM and Hallmark Cards.Corporate commitments to reduce pressure on ancient forests Companies such as B and Q and IKEA have developed integrated wood purchasing policies, which involve setting specific targets for phasing out harmful supplies, continuous monitoring of progress and establishing partnerships with environmental groups.Other companies have joined forces to achieve similar goals - the Recycled Paper Coalition in the US is one example. Worldwide, there are now 16 Forest Stewardship Council™ (FSC®) Buyers' Groups established to promote the trade and consumption of forest products from independently certified forestry operations.Corporate commitments can have a significant impact on demand for ancient forest products: in Germany, the UK and the Netherlands, tropical timber consumption dropped by 36% between 1992 and 1996.Alternatives to ancient forest products encompass not just other products, but a wide range of approaches, which can be categorised as the 5 Rs:1 Replace ancient forest products 2 Recycle and use recycled products 3 Re-use wood 4 Reduce wood and paper consumption 5 Re-think wood useALTERNATIVES TO TIMBER FROM ANCIENT FORESTSFamily housing and office construction are the most important uses of ancient forest timber. Building without ancient forest timber involves:

• Designing to extend the lifespan of a building
• Rethinking the way wood is used in construction; for instance by adopting high posted timber frames, or by using alternative materials such as strawbales, adobe clay or rammed earth.
• Re-using timber and using recycled timber. A growing number of companies in the USA are selling salvaged timber, which has "antique" decorative value.
• Harvesting sunken logs is an option which several companies are pursuing.
• Reducing the need for new timber in future. Companies such as Proctor and Gamble, Kellogg's and Nestle in the UK are replacing wooden pallets with recycleable cardboard versions.
• Use of engineered wood products such as GLULAM, Laminated Veneer Timber (LVL), I-joists and Parallam. Engineered wood products increase the opportunities for using small diameter logs from second growth forests and plantations, and even recycled timber and plywood. In the USA, engineered wood products saved the use of 23 million m3 of roundwood in 1993.

Timber panels

• The use of alternatives such as Medium Density Fibreboard (MDF), bamboo, non-wood fibres like wheat straw and soybean stalks, is already occurring. The Canadian company CanFibre, is producing MDF made entirely from 100% recycled waste wood fibre, without urea formaldehyde resins.
• In response to a number of Hollywood film companies, pledge to phase out the use of tropical hardwood plywood boards in film sets, Simplex Products designed an 85% recycled replacement called "Studio Board".

Wood processingTechniques such as star-sawing and turning softwoods into hardwoods (e.g. PLATO and acetylation) are promising developments.ALTERNATIVES TO PAPER FROM ANCIENT FORESTSThe bulk of ancient forest pulp and paper in the world is produced in Canada; most is consumed in the USA. Printing and writing paper (including office paper) and newsprint - which together account for 41% of world paper consumption -are the most important sector in terms of ancient forest use.Office papersCompanies can reduce paper consumption by 20% by "good housekeeping" - e.g. double-sided copying and lighter-weight papers - and by up to 50% by changing systems, e.g. introducing electronic communications.Examples of companies which have cut paper consumption include Osaka Gas in Japan and the US communications giant ATandT, which has saved 21 million sheets of paper each year by introducing a range of paperless billing schemes.Recycled office papers are meeting higher than ever performance criteria. Companies such as UK Paper are taking advantage of large waste paper resources in the "urban forests" of large cities to produce high quality, recycled office papers.Governments can set an example and speed the growth of markets by setting targets for their own recycled paper use. In 1998, virtually all paper used by the German government was recycled.Printing paperUse of paper for magazines, direct mail, junk mail and other corporate mailings is increasing much faster than the avergae growth for all other types of paper, and has a low recycled content. New technologies in paper manufacturing - such as processes used by Germany´s Haindl Papier - offer the potential to significantly improve recycled content.Newsprint accounts for around 13% of global paper use. It is possible to recycle newsprint five times with little change in fibre quality. Yet the average recycled content of newspapers in Western Europe was 55.8% in 1997, and in the USA it was only 28%.US states are setting targets to improve this percentage, and individual companies are already achieving far higher performances. The recycled content of Switzerland´s largest newspaper, Blick, was 85% in 1997.Tree-free papersAround 7% of all paper worldwide are derived from fibres other than trees. These include straw, sugar cane waste (bagasse), bamboo, kenaf, hemp, flax, cloth and jute. While most of tree-free papers are produced in China, companies like Crane Co. in the USA has been printing on cotton rag pulp for 100 years, and even makes paper from old blue jeans.Tree-free paper production has not received the research and development focus of woodpulp, but clean production pulping technologies offers significant environmental benefits, and in some cases (such as straw) the potential is there to make paper cheaper.

Num. pages: 12