How FAO helps greenwash the timber industry’s greenhouse gas emissions

My most recent article for the World Rainforest Movement Bulletin is now posted on chrislang.org. There was so much wrong with the report that the FAO commissioned, it was difficult to know where to start.

How FAO helps greenwash the timber industry’s greenhouse gas emissions

The FAO uses tax payers’ money to promote the timber and pulp and paper industries.

By Chris Lang. Published in WRM Bulletin 157, August 2010

Faced with greenhouse gas emissions at every stage of the production chain, the timber industry has a choice. It could look at reducing emissions. Or it could attempt to greenwash its operations, in effect attempting to evade responsibility. Perhaps not surprisingly, given its record, the industry is opting for the latter.

WRM tells FAO that plantations are not forests

Press release from World Rainforest Movement:

WRM meets with FAO in Rome to present a foresters’ statement questioning the definition of monoculture tree plantations as forests

Rome, 22 September 2008. Representing the World Rainforest Movement, Raquel Núñez met today in Rome with FAO forestry officials to raise the issue of the problems resulting from the definition of forests by that UN agency that includes all types of plantations as “forests.”

Useless: FAO report on new pulp mills

The FAO recently published a survey of pulp and paper capacities between 2005 and 2010. The survey is based on figures “from correspondents in many countries.” Sounds great, doesn’t it? (I’m assuming that like me, you’re trying to wrap your head around where the pulp and paper industry is likely to go next.)