Newsprint Makers, Newspaper Publishers Part of Landmark Canadian Conservation Effort

By: Jim Rosenberg Two years of talks have culminated in forest-products companies and environmental organizations agreeing to cooperate in the protection of Canadian boreal forests. The negotiations led nine environmental groups to join 21 members of the Forest Products Association of Canada in announcing no new cutting on 72 million acres, severely limited activity on another 180 million acres, and an end to campaigns against the companies by Greenpeace, Forest Ethics and Canopy. At 1.3 billion acres, the enormous stretch of northern Canadian forest is among world's largest intact ecosystems. To be implemented over the next three years, the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement calls for work with scientists on conservations plans and sustainable practices that are hoped to influence provincial governments in setting aside areas to protect the boreal forest environment. Signatory lumber suppliers and papermakers, including newsprint manufacturers AbitibiBowater, Kruger and Tembec, will be able to offer eco-friendly products made through sustainable practices that preserve the habitat of caribou and other animals and plants and the large store of carbon that is the forest. In announcing the agreement, Forest Products Association President and CEO Avrim Lazar said, "Together we have identified a more intelligent, productive way to manage economic and environmental challenges in the Boreal that will reassure global buyers of our products' sustainability." Parties to the agreement have begun meetings with provincial and First Nations governments for leadership and participation in achieving the agreement's goals. Progress in reaching the agreement's objectives will be measured and reported by an independent auditor. Specific commitments include developing and implementing "world-leading" management and harvesting, completing joint proposals for networks of protected areas and the recovery of at-risk species, a life-cycle approach to forest carbon management, and support for the economic future of forest communities and for recognizing conservation achievements in the global marketplace. Calling the agreement "a testimony to the power of the marketplace," Canopy Executive Director Nicole Rycroft said she had "absolutely no doubt of the important role" newspaper publishers played in making an agreement possible. Some newspaper company executives, Rycroft told E&P, were aware of the likelihood of an agreement, but because it was not finalized until mid-May, strict confidentiality prevented her and others from divulging details before last week. At one point last year, when discussions "were looking a little tenuous," Rycroft recalled, "a number of newspaper, book and magazine publishers "did place calls to their suppliers, highlighting their concerns" about woodland species survival and sustainable logging practices. "Large publishers and printers," she added, "will play a very important role in seeing that progress continues to be made." Much as newspapers have been able to promote the recovery of their products and their use of recycled fiber, North American publishers that worked with Canopy can "point to the agreement and their role in making it happen," said Rycroft. Among those publishers are Hearst in the United States and Transcontinental in Canada. Demand among publishers has been part of a larger green market for forest products, which helped push the parties toward agreement, according to Rycroft, who cautions that the agreement is really only a starting point of concerted action to save the boreal forest.