Australia: Report details how Japanese destroy ancient forests for paper

A new report released by Australian conservation groups The Wilderness
Society and Still Wild, Still Threatened shows that despite claims to
the contrary, Japanese paper manufacturers are the purchasers of wood
chips derived from the destruction of Tasmania’s old growth forests.

Get full text; support writer, producer of the words:
http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0215-tasmania.html

This revelation comes after a major scandal in Japan where it was
revealed that Nippon and Oji were misleading consumers about the
amount of recycled paper content in their products. That scandal
caused major embarrassment for the companies and led to the
resignation of Nippon Paper’s president, Masatomo Nakamura.

In January 2008 Shoichiro Suzuki, chairman of the Japan Paper Association and Oji Paper admitted they had been falsifying the amount of recycled content in their paper products.

The main findings of the report ‘Oldgrowth for Export’ are:

1) Approximately 78% of the original extent of tall-eucalypt forests have already been cleared or are available for logging;

2) 61 000 hectares of tall-eucalypt RFA old growth are currently unprotected from logging;

3) The dominant product from logging of Tasmania’s public native forests is pulpwood (86%), with less than 5% becoming solid wood products;

4) The vast majority of pulpwood from Tasmanian native forests – and an even higher proportion of pulpwood sourced from publicly-owned RFA old growth forests – are exported by Gunns Ltd as woodchips;

5) A significant proportion (at the absolute lowest, 20%) of woodchips from mature and old growth forests are exported to Japan.

Download report here:
http://www.wilderness.org.au/articles/old-growth-for-export-article