- Dogwood Alliance
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The Dogwood Alliance, based out of Asheville, North Carolina, is a network of over 70 groups around the southern United States working to achieve broad-based support to end unsustainable forestry practices in the region. The organization works in the marketplace to move large paper producers and customers away from sourcing their paper from endangered forests and towards increasing the use of post-consumer recycled fiber and other environmentally-friendly alternatives.
Contents
Importance
Dogwood Alliance helps to protect some of the most diverse forest regions of the world. According to a continental assessment by the World Wildlife Fund [1], U.S. Southern forests ranks high or very high for endemic species. Southeastern forests boast the highest concentration of wetlands, tree species diversity, and aquatic diversity in North America. They are also home to the richest temperate freshwater ecosystem in the world. [2]
The largest paper producing region in the world, these unique Southern forests provide 60 percent of North America’s wood and paper products as well as 15 percent of paper products worldwide. [2]
Ninety percent of Southern forests are privately owned. By 1999, six million acres (24,000 km²) of Southern Forests were being logged every year. Today, companies rely almost 100 percent on private landowners for their world fiber needs. [2]
The paper industry commonly practices clearcutting, a damaging and unsustainable (in regard to forest ecosystems) harvesting method. Clearcutting is the practice by which most or all trees in a forest sector are cut down. In addition to large-scale clearcutting and its associated impacts, the paper industry converts native forests to pine plantations managed with the routine use of chemical fertilizers, toxic herbicides and insecticides. [3]
Healthy forest ecosystems contain a large amount of carbon. Once these areas are clearcut this carbon is released into the atmosphere. Since bound carbon is exhausted from the soil when forests are cleared and managed with chemical fertilizers, the large-scale industrial forestry practices could be a major contributor of carbon emissions and global warming.[4]
Campaign/Action
Dogwood Alliance holds companies accountable for the environmental impact of their business practices. Current campaigns include: packaging campaign, the office supply sector, and the paper company sector.
Packaging Campaign
Paper is the most commonly used packaging material, making up 34% of the total packaging industry, with plastic packaging second at 30%.[5] Most paper packaging ultimately serves as a tool for branding a product, not for the product’s safety or economic protection. Once the product is opened and the packaging thrown away, the waste accounts for a large portion of landfill waste. Many industries, including fast food, beauty, and music use extra packaging to create a brand for their product. Dogwood Alliance continues to work with companies to change their practices and protect Southern forests.
There are four different paper packaging types:
- Container Board: Accounts for the largest share of packaging produced, and include the most recycled content. Examples include: brown corrugated boxes and linerboard (flat face insides of corrugated boxes).
- Paper Board: or Solid Bleached Sulfite (SBS) is of particular concern because it is made almost exclusively from virgin tree fiber, accounts for 35 percent of the paperboard market. Examples include folding boxes, food containers, cosmetic boxes, etc.
- Kraft packaging paper: used for sacks and bags
- Specialty paper: labels, molded pulp containers (egg cartons), food wrapping paper, etc.
Through continued pressure upon the market place, Dogwood Alliances strives to achieve these goals through their Paper Packaging Campaign: · To eliminate paper packaging products originating from endangered forests; · To eliminate packaging products from suppliers that are contributing to the conversion of natural forests into plantations; · To work with packaging suppliers to improve forest management practices through increased use of fiber from more sustainably managed sources in paper and packaging products; · Maximize recovery of packaging waste generated; · Reduce overall packaging; and · Maximize use of 100% recycled boxboard, a readily available alternative.
Office Supply Industry
Dogwood Alliance partnered with San Francisco-based ForestEthics to change the way paper is made in the United States by focusing efforts in the marketplace in 2000. The project, entitled The Paper Campaign, targeted the largest U.S. retail sellers including, Office Depot, Staples and OfficeMax.
Objectives for the Paper Campaign included:
· Phase out products originating from endangered forests in the Southern U.S., Canadian Boreal, and U.S. National Forests · Immediately commit to increasing the average post consumer recycled content in all paper products to 30 percent and set goal of achieving an average of 50 PCR content in all paper products. · Work with suppliers to end unsustainable forestry practices, such as: conversion of forests to plantations and to ensure any virgin wood fiber comes from well-managed forests
Staples Campaign. Victory (2002): A joint press conference between Staples and the Dogwood Alliance publicly announced the company’s environmental paper procurement policy. In this policy Staples committed to: · 30 percent PCR content across all paper products · Phase out products from endangered forests in all of Dogwood’s specified areas of interest. · Commit to supplying annual reports toward reaching these goals. · Create an environment affairs division headed by a senior executive that reported directly to the Staples CEO.
One year later (2003) Staples announced: · 26.6 percent average amount of PCRC in all paper products. · Set bench marks to suppliers in Indonesia · Publicly opposed Bush Administration’s exemption of the Tongass National Forest from protections granted to areas without roads in the U.S. National Forests. · Considered Southern Forest region a priority area for implementing their policy.
According to the Dogwood Alliance's Green Report Cards, released in 2007, Staples continues to improve their paper supply policy, but improvements remain necessary. According to this report, Staples: · Policy does not prohibit forest conversion. Staples knowingly buys from conversion sources and does not show any initiative to reduce conversion. · Has strong internal chain of custody program, but it is not independently verified, nor as robust as Office Depot · Taken important action to sever Canadian Boreal endangered forest links, but maintains links to endangered forests in Indonesia · Recently adopted their goal to make majority of product content FSC certified by the end of 2010. · Has achieved 30 percent average of PCR content, (including all product tonnage); new goal is 50 percent average PCR.
Office Depot Campaign. Victory 2004: After Office Depot failed to include protecting Southern endangered forests in their environmental policy, Dogwood Alliance challenged the company to clearly state their to protection endangered forests commitment. One year later, Office Depot revised its policy by committing to: · Identify endangered forests, including rare or vulnerable forests, containing exceptional bio-diversity that are subject to unsustainable management or are illegally logged; · Engage in landscape level conservation planning, including the establishment of ecological reserves; · Work with its suppliers to end the conversion of natural forests to plantations; · Work with suppliers to prevent the use of genetically modified trees; · Increase PCR content to at least 30 percent.
According to the Dogwood Alliance’s Green Report Cards, Office Depot continues to improve their paper supply policy, but necessary improvements remain. According to the report, Office Depot: · Has the best internal, third-party verified chain of custody program, of all the companies targeted by the Dogwood Alliance; · Remains the only company among the five to eliminate products specifically linked to forest conversion, but still buys from other known forest converters; · Has achieved modest goals for PCR content, but lags behind other companies. · Has taken some action to sever endangered forest connections, yet maintains links to endangered forest in Indonesia. · Makes no FSC preference by promoting FSC and substandard certification systems equally.
Office Max Campaign. Victory 2007. Office Max committed to work through suppliers to resolve Dogwood Alliance’s paper concerns through supply chains. In Office Max’s new environmental paper policy, Office Max committed to: · Notify its suppliers about areas of concern, the Cumberland Plateau and the impact of fiber originating from Canadian forests. · Continue to urge its suppliers to resolve these matters through their supply chains.
According to Dogwood Alliance’s Green Report Cards, Office Max continues to improve their paper supply policy, but necessary improvements remain. According to the report, Office Max: · Has a policy goal for an average of 30 percent PCR content, but no public timeline for achievement. · Has no public commitment to endangered forest protection · Has no requirement that suppliers avoid converting forests, only states an expectation. · Has no FSC preference and no significant quantities of FSC-certified fiber or products. · Lacks an adequately verified system for acquiring information about the origin of forest source from suppliers.
Supplier Campaigns
Bowater: The largest newsprint manufacturer and the largest forestland owner on the Cumberland Plateau; now AbitibiBowater, committed in June 2005 to improve their forest management practices after a campaign launched in partnership with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). The Bowater/NRDC/Dogwood Agreements includes commitments to: · End conversion of natural hardwood forests to pine plantations on all the land it owns in the United States within three years. (AbitibiBowater owns approximately 380,000 acres (1,500 km2) of forestland in the Southeastern U.S.; approximately 100,000 acres (400 km2) are native hardwood forests in the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee) · Stop buying pine fiber converted from natural forestland to pine plantations after 2007 from third-party landowners. · Use the FSC Southeast standard for hardwood management requiring variable age retention harvesting systems and other practices that eliminate the clearing of natural forests; · Collaborate on a mapping study approximately 7,000 acres (28 km2) of particularly sensitive areas (known as ‘gulfs and coves’) on all of AbitibiBowater’s land on the Cumberland Plateau, and work to protect these lands once identified; · Adopt a moratorium on the logging or selling of gulfs and coves while the study is underway; · Identify and protect the biologically important ephemeral ponds on AbitibiBowater’s land; · Adopt a 300-foot (91 m) buffer for any spraying of both herbicides and fertilizers around communities and the potentially sensitive sub-group populations, including schools, daycare centers, hospitals, homes and bodies of water; · Switch its application of aerial spraying to helicopters equipped with GIS tracking technologies instead of fixed winged planes, to provide better application control; · Work toward identifying ways to increase its use of post-consumer recycled fiber, in lieu of virgin fiber, in its products.
References
- ^ Ricketts T.H., et al. (1999). Terrestrial Ecoregions of North America: A conservation Assessment. Island Press, Washington, D.C.
- ^ a b c Southern Forest Resource Assessment. (n.d.) Retrieved on 2008-07-02, from http://www.srs.fs.fed.us/sustain/
- ^ The State of the Paper Industry [Electronic version]. Environmental Paper Network.
- ^ Brown, S. & B. Sohngenn. “The Cost and Quantity of Carbon Sequestration by Extending the Forest Rotation Age.” June 2006.
- ^ Dogwood Alliance - Why Packaging
External links
Categories:- Forestry organizations
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