Green Economy Journal Issue 57

WOOD
FORESTRY:
a greener more
sustainable future
Forestry South Africa
The fact that the forestry industry operates in and depends significantly on natural and human
resources, means that to ensure the financial sustainability of its businesses, those businesses
also must ensure their social and environmental sustainability.
BY MICHAEL PETER, FORESTRY SA*
Forestry is fortunate in that it is a sector which can generate
its own green, renewable, recyclable and CO2-sequestering
feedstock and this can be done in perpetuity, if done in a
sustainable manner. As such, the South African forestry sector is
truly embedded in the green economy and is the very epitome of a
circular economy industry.
Our sector has an excellent track record in terms of environmental
conservation. An example of this is that on average only 70% of
forestry estates are under timber crops while the remaining 30% of the
estate is set aside primarily for the management and conservation of
biodiversity and to protect the country’s scarce water resources.
Independent assessments on the state of indigenous forests and
grasslands show that plantation forestry estates almost invariably,
have much higher levels of biodiversity than any other land uses,
including in many cases, even when compared to formally protected
nature reserves. This is on account of the strong management and
stewardship practices which are implemented by timber growers in
South Africa.
Forestry products are the
products of the future.
While there are pervasive myths surrounding the industry’s water
use, the forestry sector only uses around 5% of the total water used by
the irrigated agricultural sector alone, but it returns 27% of agricultural
GDP and about the same percentage of jobs. Add to this the major
open areas which the industry maintains around water courses and
riparian zones, and the picture of the sector’s actual water use and
associated environmental practices changes dramatically.
When one considers further that plantations are not irrigated and so
they cost the taxpayer next to nothing compared to other water users,
as they do not require dams, canals, pipelines, irrigation schemes or
purification plants and it becomes difficult for an informed person to
conclude that plantations are bad for the country’s water resources in
terms of the relative economic, social and environmental returns which
the plantation industry’s water produces for the country.
If that isn’t enough to convince most well-informed people, then
one should also consider that compared to most other agricultural
practices, the forestry industry tills the soil and applies fertilisers and
pesticides (the biggest causes of pollution of South Africa’s water
resources) at a small fraction of the rate and frequency of that of
most other crops, most of which employ these practices every year.
So, water quality coming out of plantations is better both in terms of
siltation and the presence of pollutants compared to almost every
other land use in the country.
In terms of social sustainability, our industry is found in rural areas
where some of the worst poverty exists. To have a sector that provides
employment and a myriad of other social returns through Corporate
Social Investment (CSI) initiatives that fund education, food security,
health care, infrastructure, enterprise creation and social upliftment,
etc, is fantastic and something we are very proud of.
Besides the massive CSI programmes, there are innumerable
examples of small and medium-scale timber growers and processors,
who have opted to continue to use manual inputs in processes, which
could be performed far more efficiently through mechanisation and
automation, simply because they wish to continue to support the
communities in which their businesses operate.
As a country with one of the highest unemployment rates in the
world, we should be putting in place mechanisms to incentivise
businesses to keep putting people ahead of profits, as without such
support, many businesses may not be able to sustain themselves
in financial terms, unless they embrace further mechanisation
and automation.
In a world where economic recovery is on everyone’s lips, the focus
needs to be on the activities that can be truly called green. These will
not only drive a more sustainable economic recovery, but also limit our
effect on the planet. Sectors, like ours, that place a strong focus on the
sustainable use of a renewable natural resource, whose end-products
are reusable and recyclable, will provide a blueprint for a green, circular
economy going forward.
Globally, people are looking for solutions that will reduce, if not
eradicate, our reliance on the extraction of finite resources from our
planet. They want a renewable feedstock that can be replenished
and repurposed into a myriad of end-products, some which are
already replacing everyday non-renewables like plastics and other
fossil fuel derivatives.
Forestry products are the products of the future. Be it paper
packaging, wood-based fabrics, bio-plastics, timber-based buildings or
futuristic green fuels, these forest products capture carbon while they
grow and store it while they are in use.
The rapid adoption by the rest of the world of forest products as
preferred alternatives to fossil-based products, is proof positive that
the entire world sees the value in the circular forestry industry and
foresters are proud to be such a key part of the solution to the world’s
most critical challenges.
*Michael Peter is an executive director at Forestry SA.
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