Ariel view of the Boreal forest, one of the largest forests on the planet.
An investigative report by an environmental group has singled out 35 companies, many of which are popular household brand names, for fueling the destruction of Canada’s Boreal forest.
The report by Greenpeace Canada criticizes four main logging companies, Abitibi-Consolidated, Bowater, Kruger and SFK Pulp, accusing them of being responsible for eliminating nearly 200,000 square kilometres of the forest, which is considered to be one of the largest ancient forests on earth.
But it also singles out many well-known businesses such as Best Buy, Grand & Toy, Time Inc., Sears, Coles/Indigo and Toys “R” Us, for being customers that encourage the practices of the logging companies because of the magazines, flyers or products they sell and distribute.
“The Boreal Forest is the largest storehouse of terrestrial carbon on the planet, storing 47.5 billion tons—seven times the entire world’s annual fossil fuel emissions,” reads the report that was released on Monday in Montreal.
It urged the provincial governments of Ontario and Quebec to get tough with the forestry industry, noting that in some cases less than a third of the forests they were managing had remained intact. But the environmental group also called on the companies that buy the wood products from the logging companies to immediately suspend their contracts.
“Greenpeace believes that customers of logging companies have a responsibility to protect ancient forests and can play a significant role in breaking the chain of destruction in the Boreal Forest,” the report said. “There is increasing recognition that the marketplace can have a significant impact in shifting the way forestry is carried out on the ground and ending logging in intact forests.”
The Boreal forest is home to about a million aboriginal people along with many endangered species, such as woodland caribou, lynx, grizzly bear.
Environmentalists say it is a critical area to preserve in the fight against rising greenhouse gas emissions that are linked to global warming.
The report also said that many individual consumers are turning away from harmful practices, fueling a new demand for certified wood products that are produced following guidelines of the Forest Stewardship council to ensure sustainability.
But industry officials stressed independent reports have concluded that Canada’s standards were among the toughest in the world. Last March, a United Nations report from March even found that Canada’s deforestation rate has been at zero for two decades.
Andrew Casey, the vice president of the Forest Products Association of Canada, suggested that it would be risky to allow products from countries with less stringent standards to replace the Canadian industry products.
“If all countries of the world could eliminate or virtually eliminate deforestation as Canada has done, this would have an impact comparable to eliminating fossil fuel emissions in the United States in terms of advancing GHG (greenhouse gas) mitigation efforts,” he said.
Members of the association have also boasted that they have slashed their greenhouse gas emissions by 44 per cent since 1990, which is more than seven times Canada’s Kyoto target.
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