Paper products, pulp for clothing, and palm oil all place compounding stresses on Indonesia’s rainforests, communities and animals.
The Paper Trail to Canada, the US & Europe
Indonesia’s pulp and paper giants sell to international customers in the publishing, office retail, print and packaging sectors. Additionally they sell to paper producers in China – with China increasingly a major global production centre for paper and sourcing. China-based paper mills source much of their wood fibre from Canada’s forests and Indonesian rainforests and plantations.
Be it domestic or internationally printed products, Indonesian rainforests are finding their ways into our offices and homes in the books, photocopy paper, tissue products, packaging, magazines and reports we buy and read. Reports by World Wildlife Fund and the Rainforest Action Network found that up to 90% of children’s publishers carried books that contained fibre stemming from rainforest destruction. The situation is improving, however, as many book publishers are crafting progressive purchasing policies and looking closely at the source of their fiber.
From the Tropics to Your Wardrobe
In 2010, Canopy research uncovered a new emerging threat: dissolving pulp. The result of a chemical intensive and grossly inefficient pulping process, dissolving pulps are the basis for a variety of products from food, to electronics and eye-ware. Dissolving pulps are also the basis for rayon, viscose, lyocell and modal, fibres that are increasingly important for the global fabric and clothing industries. In fact, the lion’s share of dissolving pulp production is used for fabric and textile production
Indonesian rainforests are a significant source of fibre for global clothing production with controversial dissolving pulp mills in northern Sumatra, along with a significant amount of wood flow out of the country to feed other South East Asian dissolving pulp mills. Check our CanopyStyle campaign to ensure the latest fashion trends are not resulting in the loss of orangutan habitat.
