Turning a new leaf

>> Forest giant bows to strict environmental monitoring

by GEORGE MADDUX

Prior to their annual shareholder meeting in Montreal last week, Tembec stockholders might have quivered to see Frank Dottori, the CEO of the huge pan-Canadian forester, gladhanding with the scourge of forestry freemarketeers, Monte Hummel of the World Wildlife Fund. They might have been further horrified to hear Dottori announce that Tembec--a company that logs a huge 130,000 square kilometre swath of Canadian forest--has agreed to allow Hummel's WWF and the Mexican-based Forest Stewardship Council dictate the way Tembec would harvest the forests.

Had Dottori banged himself on the head with a chainsaw? Had the CEO forgotten about the bottom line? "If you had asked men 10 years ago if I could have imagined such a thing, I would have said no way," says Luc Bouthillier, a forestry economist at Université Laval. "It's very surprising."

According to Tembec spokesman Charles Gagnon, "Everybody was delighted with the announcement." Gagnon concedes that the new policy of seeking the Forest Stewardship Council seal might raise the price of their product in the short run. "But it corresponds with our direct social and environmental principles." Gagnon says Tembec made the decision on its own. "We want to be proactive. There was absolutely no pressure."

But Bouthillier says environmental groups like the Sierra Club, Greenpeace and Earth First threatened such major lumber retailers such as Home Depot with massive boycotts unless they sold exclusively wood products carrying a stamp of good behaviour from an environmental group. Home Depot, North America's second largest dealer of wood products, as well as other companies such as Ikea, have since taken to carrying certified products, thereby creating a sure market for the type of product Tembec is proposing to sell. "Consumers are looking for wood that is harvested in a socially and environmentally conscious way with proper consultations with aboriginal people," says Monte Hummel, president of the WWF Canada. "Consumers want to see a label on the product that says that this wood came in from a credibly certified source, and the SFC label is the most credible on the market now."

Hummel helped write the 10-point SFC standard in 1993, which aims to regulate various logging practices, including the manner in which soil and water are treated, to the way oil products are disposed of as well as increased consultation with aboriginals. He says the code is considerably stricter than the rival ISO and CSA forestry standards. Hummel believes most consumers will eventually prefer to purchase lumber carrying such a seal.

The Tembec-WWF marriage is seen as unconditionally good news. Or almost. "Stricter standards means that there is less total area that can be forested, that will lead to pressure for increasing yields," says Professor Bouthillier. "This could force foresters to take a more agricultural approach to wood harvesting which is unsuitable because a forest is more than that, it's a natural habitat as well." Bouthillier adds that the rules are still unclear on future genetically altered trees and the use of pesticides.

"We've seen a lot of improvements to forestry in the last two decades but we can still go a lot further," Bouthillier says of the industry which employs 120,000 Quebecers. "For example, 90 per cent of wood harvests are still done by clear cutting in Quebec. That's not normal."