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Frankfurt, 24 January 2007 Editorial Department: Business / Environment Paper Consumption Killing Forests ROBIN WOOD protests at the Paperworld trade fair in Frankfurt am Main ROBIN WOOD is taking advantage of the international trade fair "Paperworld" in Frankfurt/Main to warn about the consequences of the consumption of paper, which is far too high, in industrialised countries. Activists of the environmentalist organisation will be demonstrating at the entrance to the fair today to call attention to their demands. ROBIN WOOD is calling for people to be less wasteful when using paper and to change over to recycled paper whenever possible, especially in offices. Worldwide consumption of paper amounts to more than 338 billion tonnes, one-fourth of it in Europe alone. Since the 1960s, paper consumption around the globe has more than quadrupled and will presumably continue to rise. Predictions of the "paperless office" in the age of computers have proven to be wrong. Almost half of the trees cut down by the timber industry around the world wind up in paper production. The consequences of this kind of logging can be seen in Indonesia, where the rainforest will soon have disappeared completely. The two internationally active cellulose groups APP and APRIL have alone already destroyed more than one million hectares of rainforest in Indonesia. Nor do they stop their operations at the peat swamp forests, which are legally protected as well as ecologically especially valuable. Scientists at the University of Munich attribute 5-15% of the global carbon dioxide emissions to the destruction of the peat swamp forests. If forests and climate are to be preserved, paper consumption in industrialised countries must be reduced substantially. Moreover, the paper industry and trade must make greater use of recycling processes, including the development of better recycling systems, the introduction of products which can be recycled as easily as possible and the continuous increase of the share of recycled components in the products. Companies are being called upon to make paper-saving measures and the use of recycled paper a pillar of their corporate policy. All of this would be an effective contribution to climate protection. It is not necessary to destroy forests for recycled paper. In addition, significantly less energy is used for the manufacture of graphic paper, according to the ecological balance sheet of the Federal Environmental Agency. The change to recycled papers in office would be a simple one because almost all of the paper types used in offices are available in recycled quality. From an ecological viewpoint, recycled products are better than paper made from fresh fibre cellulose -- even if the cellulose comes from certified forestry. Most of the certification systems, such as the PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification), are dominated by the timber industry and cannot keep the ecological promises they have made. Even fresh fibre paper bearing the seal of the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council), which is supported and critically monitored by many environmental organisations, is not to be recommended if it is a direct competitor to products made of recycled paper. On the German market, products with the environmental seal of the "Blue Angel" are the most environmentally friendly and therefore the first choice. Contact: Peter Gerhardt, Tropical Forest Expert, Phone ++49 40 / 380 892 18, tropenwald@robinwood.de Ute Bertrand, Press Spokesperson, Phone ++49 40 / 380 892 22, presse@robinwood.de www.robinwood.de/papier