February, 2011 – The Publisher -  John Devine

When environmentalists and forestry industry officials congratulate themselves for the world’s largest conservation agreement, newspaper publishers can give each other a knowing wink in the realization that it wouldn’t have happened without them.

The industry gets full marks not only for supporting environmental initiatives, but also for prodding newsprint suppliers into green commitments such as the recently signed Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement, says Nicole Rycroft, executive director of Canopy, a Vancouver-based non-governmental organization that strives to protect the world’s forests.

“I think the role of publishers and printers has been critical up to this point, and it will be critical to the success of the agreement,” she told The Publisher.

“During the two and a half years that we were negotiating, we had a number of very challenging points in the discussions where numerous players on both sides were almost at the point of walking away.

“Having publishers and printers actually picking up the phone at those points and calling the CEOs of the relevant companies kept them at the table.”

The role of the industry will be just as important going forward, she said, adding that Newspapers Canada has a significant part to play.

The association has a critical role to play in communicating progress, as well as identifying ways that publishers can help unblock the process if it’s getting stalled, said Rycroft The agreement between nine environmental groups and 21 members of the Forest Products Association of Canada includes commitments of no new cutting on 72 million acres, and strict limits on another 180 million acres of the green swath that cuts across Canada, a 1.3-billion acre ribbon that is the largest intact forest on the planet.

The boreal forest occupies 35 percent to Canada’s total landmass, and 77 percent of its forest areas. It is named after the Greek god of the North Wind, Boreas. From the Yukon, the forest, almost 1,000 kilometres wide, dips south and curves towards Labrador and Newfoundland.

“Canada’s boreal forest is part of the world’s largest terrestrial carbon sink. It is incredibly important in terms of the fresh water reserves that it contains.

It’s also very important for critical species like woodland caribou and the billions of songbirds that go there every year,” said Rycroft. “From a global perspective, it has seven of the last 10 largest remaining intact forest areas.

From a carbon perspective, from a fresh water perspective, from a species perspective, and just from an intact forest perspective, it’s of global significance and this agreement is the largest in history.”

And the newspaper industry played a key role in bringing it about.

Conservation components of the agreement are to be rolled out over the next three years; it calls for participants to work with scientists to develop strategies to protect the woodland, and hopefully influence public policy to further protect the forest.

The pact is modelled on an earlier agreement to protect the Great Bear Forest region of British Columbia. But the boreal vision is much larger, said Rycroft.

“That’s a much smaller area of intact forest, just over six million hectares. The (boreal agreement) has 21 forestry companies rather than the five which are in the (Great Bear), and nine environmental organizations rather than three. It covers about 15-times the size of the forest.”

So, what kind of attitude change has occurred to put the forestry industry in an environmental state of mind? There are two main factors at play, said Rycroft: a basic culture shift towards a green future, and a market-driven reaction.

“It’s a huge culture shift that we’ve seen take place to actually reach this stage of the agreement, which is really just a pathway — an agreement on the set of principles. “

The forest industry, she said, may end up producing smaller volumes, but what they do produce will be a more value-added and valued product that will guarantee market access.

“I think that large-scale conservation is critical to support ecological needs, as well as positioning the industry for a sustainable future.

“At the outset of the agreement, it was based on more of ... a strategic business decision for the boreal forestry companies. They were looking at their markets becoming constrained, due to a number of reasons,but the green market trend had been strengthening.”

The forestry industry, environmental groups and the newspaper industry are moving forward with a common cause, to provide stewardship of the boreal forest, said Rycroft. “I would say we are definitely partners in the vision. At this point there is very little that has actually changed on the ground yet, but that is something that ... we’ve agreed to work together to achieve.”

On the role the newspaper industry played in making the agreement a reality, Rycroft pointed to a couple of key players, The Globe and Mail and Transcontinental, but said many others in the industry had an impact.

That impact often came from environmental policies the industry has adopted, and its requirement for suppliers to provide products that satisfied those policies and practices.

“That strong message from publishers ... really sent the signal to the newsprint producers that the market is changing and that green performance is not just nice to have, but that it is going to very quickly become a barrier to access to the market.”

Rycroft credits the newspaper industry with taking an early lead in the development of environmental policies, particularly in the use of recycled newsprint, and prodding their suppliers to provide it.

While she noted the role big media companies had in producing the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement, smaller players can lay claim to the earliest environmental initiatives.

“Now Magazine in Toronto was actually the first in the Canadian newspaper industry to develop an environmental policy, and to really work with their suppliers to make sure they were printing on 100 percent recycled-content paper, and they wanted to make sure there was no endangered forest fibre on its supply chain.”

And Canadian publishers can take a share of the credit for putting this country on the map with the largest conservation agreement in history.

“We have a number of very large American and flagship titles that are starting to really ramp up their initiatives. But at this point, it has definitely been led out of Canada.”

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