An Environmentalist's Defense of Clearcut Logging

Steven E. Kallick

An environmentalist who helped broker the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement recently said that clearcut logging is “an appropriate silvaculture method” in the boreal forest.

“Frankly, in the boreal forest, selective harvest is impractical because of the nature of the trees. You don’t have the big kind of coastal old growth forest,” Steven E. Kallick, director of the International Boreal Conservation Campaign for the Pew Charitable Trusts, told Yale Environment 360.

“What you have is extensive forest of smaller trees. And in order to be profitable, you need to be able to go in there and take out a significant part of the volume. And ecologically it’s not like clearcutting in a coastal forest. It doesn’t have the same impact because the boreal forest is a vast, fire-dominated ecosystem where large-scale disturbance is not uncommon.”

The logging companies that signed the agreement have agreed to “meet or beat the Forest Stewardship Council standards,” which Kallick calls “the green seal of approval for logging.”

“The reason the Forest Stewardship Council does not prohibit clearcutting in the boreal forest is because it’s not ecologically required.”

“This is industrial forestry, with improved practices. If it was by itself the only standard being applied, we would not be satisfied. But, combined with the removal of very large tracts of forest from timber harvest and ultimately, we hope, permanent protection of those areas, then we feel comfortable with the Forest Stewardship Council standard being applied in those other areas.”

Canada’s boreal (subarctic) forest – along with undisturbed portions of the Amazon and Russia’s Taiga – is “one of the three great tracts of forest on the globe,” Kallick says. Pew decided to focus on the Canadian boreal, he told The Seattle Times, because, of the three, “it's the only one in a country with a tradition of conservation, so the most likely to be protected on a scale to preserve the ecosystem and yet allow people to benefit from the natural resources.”

Kallick told The Times he got interested in environmental work when a newspaper for which he wrote refused to publish his story about a hazardous waste dump.

“I thought, ‘I'm in the wrong business. I'm going to law school and figure out how to bust people like this.’”

Related articles:

• Environmental Groups Make Surprising Concessions in Canadian Forest Deal 
• The Boreal Forest Deal and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative

The Boreal Forest Deal and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative

Some have questioned my contention that the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement recognizes the legitimacy of the Sustainable Forestry Initiative forestry-certification standards, which some of the agreement's signers have criticized as inferior to the Forest Stewardship Council. (See Environmental Groups Make Surprising Concessions in Canadian Forest Deal.)

There was no mention of SFI in the press releases that were sent out yesterday, but the abridged version of the agreement (the full agreement is not publicly available) contains the following language:

Goal 1. World-leading Boreal “on-the-ground” sustainable forest management practices based on the principles of ecosystem-based management, active adaptive management, and third-party verification.

In achieving this goal, FPAC, FPAC Members, and ENGOs believe it is important to build on existing work (the standards in the existing three major certification programs) rather than build a new (fourth) set of standards from scratch. [A footnote adds: Canadian forest managers can certify their forest management practices to one of three internationally recognized forest certification programs: the Canadian Standards Association (CSA), the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI).] These standards of practice will be jointly developed by December 31, 2010, and implemented by December 31, 2012.

The objective is to develop a concise document that outlines the key principles and management approaches (from both a substantive and process perspective) that FPAC, FPAC Members, and ENGOs agree are required to achieve ecosystem-based management (EBM) in Canada’s Boreal Forests. In developing this document, the intent is to:

a) Base these standards of practice on the elements of each of the three existing certification programs (i.e., the practices used to apply the standards of each of the programs on the ground as evidenced by the current certifications) that best embody an ecosystem-based management approach, using as a reference point the on-the-ground application of the existing Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) National Boreal Standards;
b) Provide for verification of compliance with these standards of practice through third-party audits (e.g., as currently provided for as part of FPAC membership’s existing sustainable forest management (SFM) certification commitment);
c) Establish principles and procedures to govern the audits of such standards of practice based on best auditing practices in the Boreal:
i) The topics included in these principles and procedures will include (but not be limited to) the required qualifications of auditors, the selection of auditors, consultation, field sampling protocols, the time frames for addressing corrective action required, transparency of audit results, etc.; and
ii) The intent is that these principles and procedures be efficient and avoid audit duplications;
d) Recognize the role of formal and informal voluntary conservation areas within the managed landscape;
e) Base this work on the best available information;
f) Provide for continuous improvement through active adaptive management; and
g) Undertake this work in a manner that is efficient, cost-effective in both its development and implementation on forest tenures, and respectful of the auditing processes and procedures of the three certification programs, as well as in a manner that does not result in a premature process of standards revision. 

That doesn't mean that certification schemes won't be a point of contention among the organizations that signed the agreement. After all, ForestEthics has accused SFI of tax fraud and greenwashing, saying it is a "phony" scheme that benefits from tax-deductible contributions from "environmentally controversial companies" like Weyerhaeuser, which also signed the agreement.

Environmental Groups Make Surprising Concessions in Canadian Forest Deal

The landmark truce announced yesterday by Canadian forestry companies and green groups represents a new direction for the environmental movement.

It’s surprising enough that the former enemies signed a deal involving forestry practices and conservation for an area of the Canadian boreal forest larger than Texas.

Even more stunning is that radical environmental groups like Greenpeace and ForestEthics signed an agreement that calls for “policies and investments that improve the competitiveness of the Canadian forest sector” and “improved prosperity of the Canadian forest sector and the communities that depend on it.” That’s a big switch from contentions that no logging should occur in ecologically sensitive boreal (sub-arctic) forests.

The agreement also recognizes the legitimacy of the industry-backed Sustainable Forestry Initiative in addition to the rival Forest Stewardship Council. (See The Boreal Forest Deal and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative for more on this subject.) Greenpeace has urged its supporters to “look for the FSC label” when buying forest products, and the two groups sponsored a study that concluded only FSC “represents a viable system that delivers positive results on the ground and in the communities where it matters most” and therefore is “the only forest certification system that is broadly supported by conservation groups."

The nine environmental groups also committed to calling off any “do not buy” campaigns targeted at customers of the signatory forest-products companies. ForestEthics is perhaps best known for its successful guerilla-theater-style Victoria’s Dirty Secret campaign. More recent efforts involving the boreal forest have targeted Sears and Kimberly-Clark.

In return, the forest-products companies agreed to “the suspension of logging on nearly 29 million hectares [two-thirds the size of California] of Boreal Forest representing virtually all Boreal caribou habitat within company tenures.” Caribou habitat is often viewed as a rough proxy for boreal forests that are relatively undisturbed by human activity.

The 21 forestry companies (including AbitibiBowater, Kruger, NewPage, and Weyerhaeuser) also committed to working with the green groups and an independent panel of scientists to develop “best practices for biomass harvesting” and then to follow those practices, backed up by third-party audits.

A goal of the agreement is to make Canada “a world leader in conservation and protection of Boreal biodiversity through a mix of conservation measures, the completion of a protected areas network, and the implementation of third-party certification of sustainable forest management practices.”

The agreement offers hope that the environmental movement is growing up and learning to see the big picture. It makes far more environmental sense to work with relatively responsible companies in a well-regulated country like Canada than to cause the demand for paper and other forest products to shift to environmental nightmares like Indonesia.

How the deal will actually work in practice is not entirely clear. Yesterday’s news release, “highlights” document, and abridged description of the agreement left some key questions unanswered:

• Show me the money: Who will foot the bill for the studies, audits, and other activities called for in the agreement? And will the environmental groups receive any direct compensation in return for dropping the kinds of high-profile campaigns that can be good for fundraising?
• What will happen to forestry companies that log the Canadian boreal forest but did not sign the agreement? Will they, and their customers, face pressure to sign?
• Will other environmental groups go along with the agreement? Or will some claim it doesn’t go far enough and start new “do not buy” campaigns against the signatory companies?
• Will ForestEthics retire Candace the Caribou, the character who often appears at protests of boreal-forest logging? Or will she start appearing at rallies against the destruction of the boreal forest by the extraction of oil from Canadian tar sands?
• We know from that scholarly movie “Ghost Busters” that one sign of “a disaster of biblical proportions” is dogs and cats living in peace. Does that mean we should be worried when environmentalists and loggers hold hands, sing “Kum Ba Yah” and agree to bury the hatchet?

Related articles:

• Marcal Challenges the Green-ness of Greenpeace: A paper company accused Greenpeace of selling out by setting its standards for eco-friendly paper too low and for backing off on its efforts to protect Canada's boreal forest.
• The Great Forest Certification War: ForestEthics accused the Sustainable Forestry Initiative of tax fraud and greenwashing; SFI fired back.

Marcal Challenges the Green-ness of Greenpeace

A journalist friend notes that an article headlined "Dog Bites Man" isn't much of a story, but that "Man Bites Dog" is big news.

Here's a true man-bites-dog story: A paper company is accusing Greenpeace of selling out by setting its standards for eco-friendly paper too low and for backing off on its efforts to protect Canada's boreal forest. This is the same Greenpeace that has used various tactics to embarrass such companies as Victoria's Secret, Sears, and AbitibiBowater over logging in the boreal.

Marcal Paper's criticism of Greenpeace comes barely a week after members of the environmental group were arrested while blocking the entrance to Quebec's Natural Resources Department to protest boreal logging.

The New Jersey-based maker of 100%-recycled toilet paper was commenting on Greenpeace's announcement Thursday that it was ending its "Kleercut" campaign against Kimberly-Clark. Greenpeace agreed to a truce because the maker of Kleenex promised that, by the end of 2011, at least 40% of its tissue fiber will be either recycled or FSC certified.

"Since when is 40 percent a passing grade?" Tim Spring, Marcal CEO, said in a statement issued yesterday. "While I understand the negotiating process, Greenpeace needs to rethink these standards. There is no excuse to make paper from anything but 100 percent recycled fiber, especially when you consider that paper takes up a quarter of our landfill space today."

"It is unnecessary to kill even a single additional tree to manufacture toilet paper, facial tissue, napkins or paper towels," Marcal's statement says.

So what happens next? Here's a hint from Greenpeace's Web site: "Did you know that K-C competitors Georgia Pacific and Procter & Gamble currently have policies that fail to protect the world’s forests?"