The International Council of Forest and Paper Associations (ICFPA) announced Jane Molony as its new president. Molony, executive director of the Paper Manufacturers Association of South Africa (PAMSA), will serve in this capacity for the next two years.

“Across the world, wood, paper and tissue products touch lives every day in ways that often go unnoticed. Without our industries’ products, many people would not be able to teach, read or learn; businesses would not be able to ship merchandise, or protect goods; nor would people be able to improve their lives through the basics of personal hygiene.
“Forest and paper products also have a great environmental and economic story to tell. It is a story that has been proudly told by the ICFPA for 15 years. I am particularly honoured to take charge of this group of leaders,” says Molony.
Molony was elected at the ICFPA’s annual meeting in Berlin, Germany last week. The meeting of 18 representatives from ICFPA members associations discussed future activities, cooperation and sustainability-related issues.
Molony succeeds Elizabeth de Carvalhaes, president and CEO of the Brazilian Tree Industry, who served as ICFPA president for the past three years.
“It has been a privilege to help the ICFPA continue its legacy of advocacy on important issues of interest of this global industry, and I have put significant efforts in communication. I believe this industry has a remarkable story to tell and we are just scratching the surface when it comes to public awareness and understanding of the sustainable benefits of the global forest products industry,” said Carvalhaes. “It was a great pleasure and honour to be part of this important forum and network of leaders and Ibá will continue to advocate towards the global forest industry and the plantations based industry locally and globally.”
“On behalf of the entire ICFPA, I would like to thank Elizabeth for her leadership and guidance,” adds Molony. “I look forward to continuing to work with her and the other members of the steering committee to ensure a strong global forest products industry.”
The ICFPA represents more than 30 national and regional forest and paper associations around the world.

For more information about the sustainability of the forest and paper industry, visit icfpa.org. www.forestryexplained.co.za is also worth a visit.

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The United Nations International Day of Forests on 21 March 2017 will be marked by Forestry South Africa with the launch of an information and illustration-rich website, ‘Forestry Explained’. The International Day of Forests is about celebrating all forests, indigenous and commercial.      

Commercial forests are often forgotten despite the fact that they touch our lives in a myriad of ways. “From roof trusses and benches, to paper, packaging and tissue and the cellulose used in food and medicine, fibre from commercially grown trees plays an integral part in everyday life,” says Forestry South Africa executive director Michael Peter. “If we were to remove wood and paper-based products from our daily routines, we would soon appreciate the important function they perform.”

An indispensable sector

He adds that there is also more to forestry than planting and harvesting trees. “Thorough research, planning and management goes into keeping trees, and the land on which they grow, healthy and productive. The sector also provides jobs and supports communities.” Add to this the diverse animal and plant species that call forestry-owned land home, and you have an environmetally conscious sector that delivers an array of renewable, carbon neutral and versatile end-products.

At a local and personal level, forestry touches people – through the products they use every day without even knowing it – and communities, through education and skills development. Forestry also has a positive influence on climate change mitigation, provides a sustainable alternative to the deforestation of natural forests and is a renewable source of energy and construction materials.

One-stop guide to forestry

The new portal www.forestryexplained.co.za offers itself as ‘a beginner’s guide to forestry in South Africa’ and caters for users of all ages. It covers the basics of forestry and forest products, and everything from water-use to recreation, pest control, ownership and end-uses.

This one-stop resource offers in-depth but easy-to-read content supported by well-illustrated infographics and additional links for those who want to explore the industry further. It is ideal for learners and teachers.

Sustainably managed commercial forests should be celebrated for the benefits they bring to our daily life. To do this we need to understand them and the complex ecosystems that they are. Forestry Explained does this. It’s well worth a visit.

The Forestry Explained website supplements Forestry South Africa’s long-standing online directory platform www.forestry.co.za.

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In South Africa, 1.3 million hectares (ha) of pine and eucalyptus trees are sustainably managed for commercial processing into wood and paper products. Through modern science and nanotechnology, wood fibre – cellulose – is used in automobiles, aerospace, defence and even medicine.

While Arbor Week traditionally calls on all South Africans to plant indigenous trees as a practical and symbolic gesture of sustainable environmental management, timber plantations deserve due recognition for the benefits they bring to the economy, society and the environment.

Wood and paper products touch our lives every day and it’s a relationship that often goes unnoticed, unless we were to take those same products away. From furniture, roof trusses and timber poles to books, writing paper, magazines, as well as boxes and packaging in innumerable shapes and sizes.

“When we grasp that trees are farmed for commercial use, we are able to understand the important role they play,” says Forestry South Africa executive director Michael Peter. “Just like any agricultural crop, trees are planted, harvested and replanted to ensure a sustainable supply of wood. And like any crop, plantations have an impact on the environment.”

Such impacts, Peter explains, are offset by the carbon dioxide absorbed and oxygen released by trees, by the employment and development benefits which forestry brings to communities, and by the biodiversity that is conserved by land owners.

In commemoration of Arbor Week and the theme ‘Forests and Water’, Forestry South Africa shares the facts about timber plantations, water, biodiversity and people.

Plantations and water

• Plantations are not irrigated as trees get their water from rainfall. This means that there are none of the high costs associated with delivering water to other users, such as dams, pipelines, pumping stations and water purification plants.
• Plantations also use a small fraction of the fertilisers and herbicides used in other land uses and, as such, negative impacts from these activities on biodiversity and water quality are very low.
• Plantations are one of the most efficient and beneficial water users – both in respect of the timber produced and the associated carbon dioxide sequestered (absorbed) in the process.

• Plantations use both soil and water resources but these can be measured against the returns they provide:

1. Forestry uses just 3% of available water in the country. This is just 5% of the water used by agriculture (62%). (Strategic Overview of Water Sector in South Africa, 2010. Department of Water Affairs)
2. Forestry occupies about 1.2% of the land used for agriculture
3. Plantations and the forest products sub-sector provide 22.5% of jobs in agriculture

• All forests are vital to the Earth’s water supply as they influence how and where rain falls, filtering and cleaning water.

Plantations and biodiversity

• The South African National Biodiversity Institute concluded in a seven-year grasslands programme funded by the Global Environmental Facility that the grasslands managed by plantation growers were the most diverse and best conserved of all land uses in the programme.
• There are more formally protected grasslands and natural forests under management of the plantation industry, than in any other commercial land use sector.
• Some 80% of the land reserved for plantation forestry is certified to the standards of the Forest Stewardship Council. Approximately 25% of this land is not planted to trees and is conserved for biodiversity.
• The Living Planet Report published in 2014 by the World Wildlife Fund and the Zoological Society of London lauded the Mondi Wetlands Project among the four solutions to global wildlife loss.

Plantations and people

• Apart from the 165,000 jobs in forestry, there are an additional 551,000 forestry-related jobs in upstream and downstream sectors (pulp and papermaking, furniture, timber for mining and construction etc).
• Forestry provides other social benefits to about three million people in rural areas: access to education, training, health care, housing, nutrition, transport, infrastructure and business development and support.

Trees – in all forms – are essential to life on our planet. They absorb excess carbon dioxide and pollutant gases, and provide clean air, water and climate regulation. As a renewable resource and a livelihood for many communities, forests are an important part of the solution to meeting global needs for food, fuel, fibre, medicine and other products essential to daily life.

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It is against this backdrop that Forestry South Africa (FSA) has sponsored a cash prize of R60,000 towards the Agristars Youth Award for Forestry in partnership with the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF). This prize was awarded to bioresources engineering students Lesego Mokou and Kholofelo Moloko from the University of KwaZulu-Natal. They received their award along with other young entrepreneurs and innovators in Pretoria on Thursday, 30 June, at a high-profile dinner hosted by DAFF Deputy Minister General Bheki Cele.

The Minister issued a clarion call to South Africa’s young entrepreneurs, innovators and scientists. “Don’t get your PhD and masters, and then look for a job. Your job is to look far, far ahead. We want you to come with answers.”

Engineering answers for emerging timber growers

Together with Simon Ackerman, research scientist at the Institute for Commercial Forestry Research (ICFR) and UKZN peers, Thankslord Hadebe and Namisani Nduli, Mokou and Moloko engineered a cost-effective timber winch proposed as a production tool to assist small-scale growers and contractors to productively extract timber grown on steep terrain.

The development and prototyping was established as a collaborative project with the UKZN Bioresources Engineering Department forming part of their final year student training undergraduate curriculum.

The project – initiated in 2015 by Hadebe and Nduli – resulted in the development of a chainsaw-powered winch as the base for future work. The prototype showed great promise and was further developed this year, incorporating a change in the drive mechanism, and an overall revamping of the structural design. Mokou and Moloko have been responsible for bringing this design to the point where it is ready for prototype manufacture.

Stars of agriculture, forestry and fisheries light up SA’s future

The event showcased the excellence and exceptional achievements of young graduates, entrepreneurs and producers in agriculture, forestry and fisheries in the hope of attracting and absorbing more young people into these sectors as a desirable and ‘cool’ career.

The initiative forms part of DAFF’s Young Producers and Entrepreneur Strategy (YPES), which aims to bridge the gaps of mature producers while reducing youth unemployment and poverty. The strategy supports the establishment of youth-owned and/or managed enterprises, youth entrepreneurs and activities that encourage the active participation of young people in the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sector.

Vibrant sector, value-add and rural development

South Africa has a vibrant commercial forestry sector, which plays an important role in meeting domestic wood and wood product needs. It also earns valuable foreign currency through wood chip and cellulose exports. In addition, tree growing contributes to the development and improvement of rural livelihoods.

FSA executive director Michael Peter highlights the sector’s socio-economic importance: “The forestry industry provides significant social and enterprise support to local people. More than 24,000 small-scale timber growers have entered the market over the past two decades, many of whom have gone on to become very successful and to create employment for more people.”

He adds that forestry companies provide formal employment for approximately 145,000 people, in addition to tens of thousands of related upstream and downstream jobs along the wood and paper product value chains.

FSA’s members and partners provide bursaries throughout the forest product value chain, and fund the University of Pretoria’s Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute (FABI) and the Institute for Commercial Forestry Research (ICFR) where many more young people are supported in their forestry-related professions.

DST sees the wood for the trees

For the past eight years, the Department of Science and Technology (DST) has funded FABI’s Forest Molecular Genetics Programme, which has evolved into a multifaceted tree-breeding platform. The Industry Innovation Partnership initiative established in 2013 saw an initial allocation of R500 million with a reservation of R166 million for the development of the Sector Innovation Fund (SIF) as part of the broader initiative.

The forestry SIF – ‘Future Plantation Forests for the South African Bio-economy’ – implemented and coordinated by FSA, has attracted a DST investment of R25 million over three-and-a-half years. It is expected that at least R20 million will be funded by industry, as a direct cash contribution.

DAFF leads the industry in pest and disease control

DAFF and FSA have continued to co-fund the multi-million Rand Sirex Woodwasp Control Programme. The programme, implemented through FABI and the ICFR, has saved the plantation industry from massive losses to this damaging pest. DAFF and FSA also co-fund the Tree Protection Co-operative Partnership at FABI, which remains a global leader in the field of pest and disease research.

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Forestry South Africa (FSA) represents South Africa’s timber growers with membership spanning all 11 active corporate forestry companies, approximately 1,300 commercial timber farmers and some 20,000 small-scale growers. Collectively, FSA’s members own or control no less than 93% of the country’s total plantation area.

In South Africa, around 1.3 million hectares of fast-growing tree plantations are grown as short-rotation woody biomass crops to produce approximately 20 million tonnes of renewable biomass feedstock. These industrial wood plantations are managed by growers and processors for a wide array of end products, with a shift away from traditional pulp and paper towards bioenergy and chemical feedstocks. These require cutting edge science, technology and innovation.

Globally, the forestry sector contributes around $600 billion annually to GDP and provides employment to more than 50 million people.

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Forests – in all forms – are essential to life on our planet. They provide clean air, water and climate regulation. As a renewable resource, forests are an important part of the solution to meeting global needs for foods, fuel, fibre, medicine and other essential products to our daily lives.

The global forest products industry is inherently renewable. ICFPA members are committed to sustainable forest management with some 300 million hectares of certified areas from which is sourced a significant amount of wood fibre used by the industry.
“By following best practices, well-managed forests of all types are a positively contribution to the provision of distinct products and services that are essential for human well-being and development. Thus our industry is helping to alleviate climate change impacts while provides social inclusion”, said ICFPA president Elizabeth de Carvalhaes.

“South Africa’s pulp and papermaking industry is built on the country’s large plantation forest industry, explains Jane Molony, executive director of the Paper Manufacturers Association of South Africa (PAMSA) which is represented on the ICFPA. “Our plantations are managed in a sustainable manner, which means that as one tree is felled in one part of the forest, another is planted in another area. This ensures that the supply of trees for pulp and paper making is renewed into the future.”

Molony adds that trees are the source for thousands of products – from traditional products such as timber, pulp and paper and biomass energy to liquid biofuels, biochemicals, biomaterials, nanofibres or nanocrystals of cellulose to improve products used in such applications as automobiles, aerospace, defence, etc.

ICFPA is proud to represent the contributions of the global forest products industry to sustainable development, ensuring that environmental, social and economic benefits are available to current and future generations.

The 2015 ICFPA Sustainability Progress Report highlights the industry’s improvements across a range of sustainability indicators and focuses on the industry’s contributions toward a green economy, including the reduction on Greenhouse gas emissions intensity, the uptake in certified sustainably managed forests and a high paper recycling rate.

The ICFPA represents more than 30 national and regional forest and paper associations around the world. Together, ICFPA members represent over 90 percent of global paper production and half of global wood production.

For more information about the sustainability of the global forest and paper industry, visit icfpa.org.

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New study commissioned by Two Sides explains why the popular “go paperless – save trees” slogans are misleading and false.

The post Going Paperless Does Not Save Trees first appeared on The Paper Story (PAMSA).

The Paper Recycling Association of South Africa (RecyclePaperZA), operating as a subsidiary of the Paper Manufacturers Association of South Africa (PAMSA), has for the past 13 years promoted recovered and recycled paper fibre as a vital link in the renewability chain.

Paper products are renewable because they are made from plantation-grown trees that have been planted, grown and harvested in cycles – and then the land is renewed with new trees which in time will provide a fresh fibre supply.

Through the process of photosynthesis the trees from which paper is made absorb carbon dioxide and convert it into oxygen. Retained carbon remains locked inside the wood fibre throughout the paper-making process.

Paper is also recyclable – what was your newspaper yesterday may be part of a cardboard box next month.

In 2014, 64% of recoverable paper was collected for recycling which means that more than one million tonnes of paper was collected, helping to reduce pollution and lessen the effects of climate change.

However if paper products are sent to landfill, they combine with materials like food waste and degrade. This process releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. One such gas is methane which is 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

Beyond the environment

But in SA, paper recycling goes beyond environmental sustainability as countless people turn to the recovery and on-sale of recyclables to make a modest living.

RecyclePaperZA, with financial assistance from the Fibre Processing and Manufacturing sector education and training authority (FP&M Seta), presents entrepreneurship training courses.

From major cities to outlying rural towns, RecyclePaperZA has empowered over 3,300 informal collectors empowering them with the knowledge and skills required to start and run a sustainable small business within the recycling domain. Collectors attend the courses free of charge.

Higher prices are paid for separated, good quality recyclables and thus the importance of separating at source is stressed during the course.

Empowering and encouraging everyday citizens

RecyclePaperZA cites a number of entrepreneur success stories. Lydia Anderson-Jardine who attended the course in 2011 in Cape Town soon secured the contract to collect all paper from the City of Cape Town municipal offices as well as Somerset Hospital. Employing 21 people and recovering nearly 120 tons of paper monthly, Lydia’s success inspired her son Rowen to partner with Elim Night Shelter in Elsiesrivier and establish the Wastewant Youth Recycling Cooperative. The project seeks to remove unemployed youth from the grips of drug and alcohol abuse by providing them with a stable opportunity to earn an income.

In SA’s KwaZulu-Natal province the Udondolo recycling cooperative in Cato Manor, outside Durban was established after three people from the cooperative attended the RecyclePaperZA training, and shared their skills with others.  The project now employs approximately 23 people, ranging in age from 23 to 72. Udondolo beneficiaries have even started hand-making secondary products from some of the recyclables they collect. “They are more conscious about the waste in their community and that waste is not really waste at all,” said Beryl Shezi from the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Students in Free Enterprise organisation.

The entrepreneurship course offering has been embraced by many municipalities across SA who have invited RecyclePaperZA to present one-day workshops to municipal employees and collectors. By working with all tiers of government to inform policy, educate officials, and upskill communities, RecyclePaperZA is part of creating more effective, efficient waste management systems.

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