Digital BW, The Print

Andre Moreau wrote:
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Ernst Dinkla
> <E.Dinkla@...> wrote:
> 
>> There's more environmental control now in the old paper 
>> industries of Scandinavia, Canada, Europe and the USA 
>> including tree replant schemes 
> 
> Right now, the forest industry is in a slump in parts of Canada.
> That's about the best news on the environmental front. Sadly, people
> are being laid off from well paying jobs.

As far as I know the demand for paper worldwide is still
increasing. That your southern neighbours may need less wood
for houses right now and have to pay more US $ to get it
from you is another thing. There's a Chinese lady who bought
a large chunk of the at that time declining waste paper
industry in the west to feed the Chinese packaging industry.
She doesn't complain. There's demand enough. Next time she
will look for Canadian paper plants.

> As for tree replants, they create artificial forests where almost
> nothing lives compared to a natural growth forest.

Entirely correct but what is the alternative ?  There's
hardly a forest in Europe that isn't cultivated, going east
some national parks may preserve a landscape that could have
existed 800 years ago. Going more east into Russia there's
cutting without replanting. At least that's better regulated
in Scandinavia, the industrial forests are not increasing in
that rate and what is taken is replaced. It will not bring
back what was there 800 years ago but at least keeps what we
have. If you go to Brazil, parts of Indonesia, areas like
that are cut and you get in best case soy, corn, sugar cane
(gasahol) or cotton replaced for it. If I read the messages
here it can be bamboo next time. Any mono culture will
reduce the biotope. It's a bit na\ufffdve to think that fast
growing exotic weeds like bamboo will be environmentally
better than poplar or eucalyptus. It is the growing demand
for pulp, for hardwood that brings alternatives to the
market, not the ecological aspect of it.

>>  The green image often isn't 
>> a clear image. Companies will adapt to the laws and the 
>> enforcement of the laws if there are no cheaper, less 
>> restricted alternatives abroad. 
> 
> Companies have been fighting tooth and nails any environmental
> restrictions, citing the need for economic growth and are blaming any
> economic downturn on environmental laws, forgetting about the forest
> industry economic cycle.

They adapt and when their PR is good they make an effort to
show it to the public. Their processes are improved, quality
is improved, labor replaced by better equipment and the PR
is improved. That's the only way to compete with less
developed countries.

> The boreal forest in northern Quebec is almost gone due to clear
> cutting. Management of the forest was left to the industry who had
> claimed that they were better equiped to protect it that any goverment
> agency.

As written forest like that is gone centuries ago here.
Another climate so not boreal but just the same. And it
isn't different in the Alps etc.

> But right now, I'm about to place an order of cotton fiber inkjet
> printing paper.

That cotton could be from the US, India, Brazil, Egypt,
Uzbekistan, refined from industrial waste or T shirts. And
nobody in the paper industry will check what process is
used, what child labor involved, what kind of insect killer
is sprayed on the crop and how much earth spools into the
Ganges due to erosion. That may be different for the fashion
industry but paper doesn't have that image. Nice that
Hahnemuhle sets a green premium on the bamboo paper price
but they could have done the same 10 years ago on the cotton
canvas and on the 100% cotton PhotoRag. Or over the last 5
centuries on their plain rag papers. Right now there's a
shortage of high quality Indian canvas and the industry
delivers all it can deliver. That's what I hear. It's up to
the countries to regulate the industry, it will come when
they have the bread to eat, have better education and get an
eye for their environment. We have been on that path too. On
one hand we should teach them, on the other hand we should
be less arrogant and see how good we can defend our own
achievements in view of the competition.


-- 
Met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst


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