By Mark Sommer and - -
BERKELEY, May 1 2004 (IPS)

Alarmed by the unrelenting destruction of the world\’s remaining old growth trees and frustrated by unresponsive and ineffectual government regulators, ancient-forest activists are turning to market-based strategies to pressure leading paper producers and retailers to shift to recycled and tree-free paper products, writes Mark Sommer, director of the Mainstream Media Project and host of award-winning syndicated radio programme, \’\’A World of Possibilities.\’\’ Over the past few years, the Paper Campaign, a US-based grassroots coalition of environmental groups, has targeted the world\’s top three paper products retailers in a concerted effort to shift market signals. In November, 2002 Staples announced its commitment to rapidly phase out all wood and paper products made from endangered forests, achieve 50 percent post-consumer content within two years, and phase out all products with 100 percent virgin wood fibre. Using recycled rather than virgin wood-fibre papers is one step in the right direction, but paper can be and is being made economically from numerous other fibres besides trees. The most promising of new options is kenaf, a fast-growing, single-season crop that can reach 18 feet in several months under optimal conditions and can be manufactured by existing paper mills.

Alarmed by the unrelenting destruction of the world’s remaining old growth trees and frustrated by unresponsive and ineffectual government regulators, ancient-forest activists are turning to market-based strategies to pressure and persuade leading paper producers and retailers to shift to recycled and tree-free paper products.

Worldwide, paper production consumes nearly half of the total harvest of forests, most often for single-use packaging, newspapers and magazines, and office copiers. One in six of these trees grows in ancient stands hundreds of years old, from the great boreal forests of Canada and Siberia, the temperate forests of the US Southeast, and tropical forests in Indonesia, the Amazon and elsewhere.

With 95 percent of its own old growth already harvested, the US is now turning to virgin forests in the developing world, where 80 percent has already been logged.

Paper production also consumes vast amounts of energy (as the fifth highest industrial user worldwide and second highest in the US) and water (where it reduces supplies for human consumption) and generates 40 percent of all municipal solid waste. Ironically, the promised ”paper-less” computer age has not only failed to reduce the demand for paper products but has actually increased it.

Worldwide, demand for paper products is slated to increase substantially. Given rising demand, declining forest reserves, diminishing species, and deteriorating environmental quality, paper and ancient forest activists have chosen to harness the power of the purchase to persuade leading paper producers and retailers to reduce their use of virgin trees and, indeed, of wood-based paper products altogether. Their shrewd use of a range of boycotting and ”buycotting” strategies is not only proving effective in transforming the paper industry but is providing a model with potentially broad relevance to other issues. Their market-based approach is a deft blend of public protests, consumer boycotts, paid ads and free media coverage, and back-channel negotiations with leading paper companies where activists both brandish threats of bad publicity and lost revenue and offer rewards of comparative advantage to those who ”do the right thing”, encouraging a ”race to the top” instead of the bottom.

Over the past few years, the Paper Campaign, a US-based grassroots coalition of environmental groups, has targeted the world’s top three paper products retailers in a concerted effort to shift market signals. Focusing first on Staples, the world’s largest paper retailer, they mounted 600 demonstrations and garnered mainstream media attention. Initially resistant to their pleas and whipsawed by competing demands from its supplier, International Paper, Staples’ senior management eventually accepted an invitation from environmentalists to fly over the Cumberland Plateau, the last great ancient forest in the US Southeast.

Moved by the devastation wrought by logging and the beauty of the remaining virgin stands, Staples came to the table with a heightened commitment to reach a settlement. In November 2002 Staples announced its commitment to rapidly phase out all wood and paper products made from endangered forests, achieve 50 percent post-consumer content within two years, and phase out all products with 100 percent virgin wood fibre. Sixteen months later, Office Depot announced a commitment to the same set of standards.

Using recycled rather than virgin wood-fibre papers is one step in the right direction, but paper can be and is being made economically from numerous other fibres besides trees. Ultimately, in order to meet rising demand for paper products while preserving the ecological diversity of native forests, we will need to shift to agricultural substitutes for trees. Bamboo, hemp, rice and banana have traditionally been used to make high quality papers. Indeed, trees have only been used for paper since the 1850’s. For nearly 2,000 years, paper was made from silk, then rags, fishing nets, and parchment, all recycled.

But the most promising of new options is kenaf, a fast-growing, single-season crop that can reach 18 feet in several months under optimal conditions, can be manufactured by existing paper mills with modest modifications, and carries none of the environmental burdens of tree-based paper products. Kenaf proponents claim the plant could become the basis for a tree-free paper industry.

For kenaf pioneers, however, it is still a high-risk venture. Lacking the capital to create economies of scale that would drive down production costs, their papers still sell at premium prices in a marketplace where consumers, unaware of long-term costs, still gravitate to the cheapest prices.

The thought that the last grand stands of ancient forests are being used for toilet paper and other disposable uses seems somehow beneath us as a species. Paper has exercised a large unrecognized influence on the course of history as a primary source of ideas, information and education. Now we are challenged to apply the very gift of this education to transform the way we make paper so the forests on which we depend for our material and spiritual sustenance can themselves be sustained for generations to come. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

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