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.

The post Forestryexplained.co.za – a fabulous forestry resource for all first appeared on The Paper Story (PAMSA).

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.

The post Celebrating trees, wood and water this Arbor Week | 4 – 10 September first appeared on The Paper Story (PAMSA).

The video is part of Sappi’s “The Thing About” series narrated by environmental journalist Johan Botha, that shares information about the company’s commitment to People, Planet and Prosperity through conservation and biodiversity management, community initiatives and partnership programmes as well as land and forest stewardship projects.

Dr Dave Everard, Sappi Environmental Manager explains how the company strives for a balance of these “3Ps” to manage the business in such a way that it is financially viable, environmentally sound and socially responsible. Dr Everard says he believes that, “timber, or vegetation biomass is one of the saviours to future sustainable issues of the planet,” and “creating more markets to use timber is a good thing as long as the timber is produced in a responsible way.” As Sappi grows, it continues to find innovative ways to improve yield, and minimise and reuse waste without negatively impacting the people and natural environment through plantation farming.

Sappi’s Ngodwana Energy Biomass Project was recently named a preferred bidder in the South African Department of Energy’s 4th window Renewable Independent Power Producers Procurement Programme. Through this project, Sappi will use locally-supplied biomass to produce energy for the national grid.

For more information on Sappi’s sustainability initiatives, please see the company’s Group Sustainability Report.

Stay tuned to Sappi’s YouTube channel. We’ll let you know about future videos in this series released in the next few months.

The post The Thing About…Earth Day first appeared on The Paper Story (PAMSA).

Let us stop buying into claims by service providers that going paperless saves trees and combats climate change.

Both sides of the story

“We live in the digital age – an age of convenience and accessibility. But these benefits should not be promoted as ‘greener’ than print,” says PAMSA’s Jane Molony.

Paper is produced from a renewable resource – wood. All paper produced in South Africa comes from plantation-grown trees, recycled paper or sugar cane. It does not come from indigenous forests but from sustainably managed timber plantations.

Around 600 million trees across 762,000ha are specifically farmed for pulp and paper manufacturing. These act as massive carbon sinks, absorbing millions of tons of carbon dioxide. When timber is harvested and turned into pulp and paper, the carbon stored is only released when the paper burns or biodegrades. (This is why we should recycle paper – to keep the carbon stored for longer.)

And just like most other crops, we plant, we harvest and we replant – 260,000 new trees every day!

The darker side of digital

In his report Print vs Digital Media: False Dilemmas and Forced Choices, Don Carli, a senior researcher at the Institute of Sustainable Communication, says: “While paper mills emit visible plumes of steam, and waste paper piles up in plain sight, the invisible ‘grey energy’ used to manufacture digital technologies and the toxic ‘e-waste’ associated with electronics are largely out of sight and out of mind. ‘Dark data’ is also exchanged between computers but never seen by human eyes.”

The average American consumes almost 34 gigabytes of data daily, mostly invisible ‘dark data’, the impact of which researchers are just beginning to study.

“We don’t know the environmental impact of saving a document on a server for 10 years or more. And we have no idea of the impact of extracting finite resources to make electronic devices that cannot easily be recycled safely and practically,” says Hans Wegner, chief sustainability officer of the National Geographic Society. (See eQ JOURNAL ISSUE 004 – Sappi)

Notably, Greenpeace has identified electronic waste as the fastest growing component of the municipal waste steam.

The bigger picture

“We need to look at the life cycle of the products we use – whether paper or digital,” stresses Molony.

“Environmentally conscious citizens who use digital media would need to consider raw materials, how and where items are manufactured, their means of transportation, how they are powered and their recyclability.”

In considering sourcing paper products and printed material, the simplest way is to buy locally produced paper or look for certification symbols (FSC, PEFC or SFI) which demonstrate a sustainable process, from the forest to the consumer. 

Consumers often fall into the trap of insisting on printing on recycled paper. “Most recycled paper is imported along with a hidden carbon footprint. Locally produced, FSC-certified virgin paper is just as green, and you support the domestic economy.”

Carli sums it up: digital media doesn’t grow on trees.

The post Going green? Paper is the way to go. first appeared on The Paper Story (PAMSA).