Turning over a new leaf
Photo: AmandaLouise (flickr)
With World Forestry Day round the corner, the spotlight is being turned on protecting the world's forest reserves. German environmental groups have a plan to tackle this by promoting books printed on sustainably sourced paper. Just one hurdle remains - convincing the publishers.
The market for books in Germany is the largest in Europe. And as is the case with many products, an increasing amount of the paper used to make them now comes from Asia, particularly China.
A recent investigation into the sourcing of paper for German children's books conducted by the World Wildlife Fund discovered that an alarming forty percent of those tested contained significant traces of tropical wood that is only found in virgin rainforest forest. And, according to the WWF, such wood is often illegally and irresponsibly harvested, destroying vital tracts of forest and the ecosystems they contain in the process.
This is why environmental organisations in Germany and around Europe are pushing for more publishers to obtain their paper from Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) approved sources. This means the wood comes from sustainable, responsibly managed forests.
Yet the green activists are having a hard time getting some publishers to play ball. As well as complaining of problems with sourcing enough FSC-approved paper, publishers say that there is not enough demand from their customers for such a product.
"With books it’s a bit tricky," admits WWF Germany's Nina Griesshammer. "I buy the book because I like the content or I want to read the story. It’s not easy to change the buying decision depending on which paper it is printed on."
Still, the campaign has succeeded in bringing on board smaller publishers and more recently Random House, a major name. The WWF are hoping that others will follow suit and help Germany's book market turn a new leaf to become one of the greenest in the world.
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