 Ancient
Forest Friendly Book Campaign
In the past few years, a hopeful model of wood reduction has emerged
through a collaboration between Canadian forest activists and book
publishers. Recognizing that over 80 percent of the world’s
old-growth forests have been logged, and that remaining ecosystems
in Canada, Brazil, Indonesia, and Russia are now under intensive
industrial harvesting, the Vancouver, British Columbia-based Canadian
Markets Initiative has succeeded in enlisting 25 publishing houses
including Random House, Knopf, and Penguin to sign 3-year commitments
to phase out papers containing fibers from ancient and endangered
forests. The publishers have also agreed to switch to processed
chlorine-free (PCF) pulping (meaning that the recycled content has
been pulped without chlorine chemicals), and to reduce office paper
consumption within their own operations.
Given market realities and long-standing resistance to change within
the publishing industry, there were plenty of reasons to assume
such an ambitious project would fail. Publishing is a highly competitive
industry with slim margins. An incremental rise in paper costs would
directly increase the cost of the product. In addition, when the
“Good Between the Covers” campaign started, high recycled
content papers suitable for the book trade were not readily available.
With lofty goals and a refusal to be defeated, campaign director
Nicole Rycroft began talking with suppliers and production departments
looking for ways to forge innovative partnerships. San Francisco-based
New Leaf Paper eventually stepped up to the challenge by filling
the niche with high post-consumer content, cost-competitive, book
grades such as Eco-Book and Good News Offset. Popular myth tells
it that, when she was informed about the campaign, Canadian laureate
Alice Munroe halted the presses so that her novel Loveship,
Friendship, Courtship, Marriage would be printed on “ancient
forest friendly” paper. That set the ball rolling. In less
than a year and a half, nearly every major publisher in the country
had joined the campaign.
“Between July of 2001 and December 2002,” Rycroft reports,
“more than 2 million books have been printed on recycled paper,
containing between 40 and 100 percent post-consumer contents materials.”
All Canadian printings of Harry Potter, including the 2003 release
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix have been printed
on ancient forest friendly processed chlorine free paper. South
of the border, university presses in the United States are working
to formalize a similar initative. An ancient forest friendly packaging
campaign is overdue.
Information on the campaign can be found at
Canadian
Market Intitiative.
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