Steps are Taken to Preserve Forests, Study Says
4/6/98
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Title: Steps are Taken to Preserve Forests, Study Says
Source: The Associated Press via The Philadelphia Inquirer
Status: Copyrighted, contact source to reprint
Date: 4/6/98
Byline: Donna Abu-Nasr
WASHINGTON -- Even though the world's forests are disappearing at an increasing
pace, governments and consumers are beginning to take steps to preserve
them by changing official policies and refusing products from badly managed
forests, an environmental group says in a new report.
"People are waking up to the need for change," said Janet Abramovitz, author of
a new study released Saturday by the Worldwatch Institute. "The next
challenge is to scale up these initiatives fast enough to prevent irreversible
damage to the world's forests."
But the report has plenty of bad news about the world's forests.
Abramovitz, in previewing the report, said half the Earth's forests were gone,
increasing pressure on the remaining ones, and deforestation had accelerated in
the last three decades. Since the 1960s, wood consumption has doubled and
paper use has more than tripled. Each year, at least another 40 million acres
of natural forest are razed. That's an area the size of Washington
state. From 1960 to 1995, legal trade in forest products tripled to $142
billion, and substantial amounts of illegal trade go unreported.
"When forests disappear, we lose more than just timber," Abramovitz said,
pointing to the role of forests in climate regulation, erosion and flood
control, habitat and watershed protection, and supplying non-wood forest
products.
But Abramovitz said governments, businesses and consumers were becoming more
aware of the dangers of deforestation and were looking into ways to prevent
more damage. More people are taking an active role in recycling, the report
says.
At least one-third of the fiber used to make new paper today comes from
recovered waste paper, up from less than one-quarter in 1970. Worldwide, more
than 40 percent of paper is now recovered and recycled. Germany recovers 67
percent of its paper; Japan, 52 percent; and the United States, 45 percent.