Can Harry Potter save ancient forests?

Feature story - February 24, 2005

LONDON, United Kingdom — Harry Potter, boy wizard extraordinaire, survived an attack from the most evil wizard of all time. He has outwitted the terrifying Death Eaters. He has turned invisible - much to the annoyance of his teachers. He is a regular David Beckham at Quidditch - the magical version of World Cup football. But now he faces his greatest challenge yet. Can he save our ancient forests?

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Hedwig the Owl visits Bloomsbury in London to ask them to print the next Harry Potter on 100% ancient forest friendly paper.

In case you've been living in a cave, you should know that Harry Potter is popular. Make that extremely, wildly, undeniably popular. The next Harry Potter book, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" is being eagerly awaited by children (and, ahem, some adults) and will be released in July 2005 in the UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.

As you can imagine, any print run as huge as Harry Potter can use thousands of trees, millions of litres of water, and enough electricity to power an ordinary, non-magical home for hundreds of years. However, printing on 100 percent ancient forest friendly paper protects ancient forests, and the muggle (that's "non-magical" for the uninitiated) creatures which depend on them. Ancient forest friendly paper can also reduce the use of water and electricity, as well as the amount of waste produced in the printing process.

Earlier this week Harry's messenger owl, Hedwig, was sent with a few Greenpeace friends to the headquarters of Bloomsbury, the publisher of Harry Potter in the UK. Hedwig delivered messages to Bloomsbury staff urging them to ensure that the next Harry Potter is printed on 100 percent ancient forest friendly paper. Ancient forest friendly paper includes recyled fibre, with any non-recyled content coming from Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) pulp.

Bloomsbury's publicity manager stated in an email to Greenpeace after Hedwig's visit that: "Bloomsbury, at the beginning of this month, ordered exclusively Forest Stewardship Council accredited paper for the printing of 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince'".

If this is the case, the next Harry Potter book could create publishing history by becoming the first major UK fiction book to be printed on ancient forest friendly paper.

We are waiting for confirmation from Bloomsbury that the book will be printed on paper made solely from pulp from FSC certified forests and post-consumer recycled fibre.

Last year Bloomsbury made an initial step towards going ancient forest friendly by printing the children's and adult's versions of the paperback of 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix' on 10 percent and 20 percent recycled paper respectively.

Raincoast Books, who co-publish the Canadian editions of the Harry Potter books with Bloomsbury, went 100 percent ancient forest friendly in 2003 by printing the Canadian edition of 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix' on 100 percent post-consumer recycled paper. Having already achieved this in Canada, there is really no reason why Bloomsbury can't replicate this success in the UK.

We very much hope that the recent positive words from Bloomsbury mean that the next Harry Potter will be printed on 100 percent ancient forest friendly paper.

Work some magic!

Send your own virtual Hedwig to ask Bloomsbury to confirm that they are going 100 percent ancient forest friendly with the next Harry Potter.