KwaZulu-Natal Business 2023-24

Seeing the wood for the trees
Using harvested wood products offers unique potential for a greener world,
as Jane Molony, executive director, Paper Manufacturers Association of
South Africa explains.
Harvested timber with plantations in the background. Credit: Mondi South Africa
Our biggest allies in building a greener,
low-carbon world are trees, and trees
of all kinds. Trees and countless plant
species take up carbon dioxide for
energy and growth. In turn, they give us oxygen.
Photosynthesis is quite remarkable.
A tree-poor country by global standards, South
Africa has 500 000 hectares of closed-canopy
indigenous forests. It is for this very reason that
indigenous trees are never used for commercial
production and why we have 1.2-million hectares
of planted forests or timber plantations.
The latter supports our wood value chain, supplying
wood for use in pulp, cellulose, paper, packaging,
sawn timber and poles among other things.
Akin to farming, forestry involves the sustainable
and scientifically backed cultivation of specific tree
species for such purposes.
For the pulp and paper industry, we have
850-million trees growing on more than 676 000
hectares. Less than 10% of this total area is harvested
during any year and the same area is replanted with
new trees – specially cultivated saplings.
These plantations share land with indigenous
landscapes – grasslands, woodlands and wetlands
– which are actively conserved on forestry-owned
land, complementing biodiversity and waterstewardship
efforts. Opponents of the forestry sector
do not see the bigger picture. Many fail to recognise
the difference between sustainable forestry, as
described above, and deforestation.
The Food and Agricultural Organisation of the
United Nations defines deforestation as “the conversion
of forest to other land use independently
of whether human-induced or not”, adding that
deforestation is essentially referring to a change in
land use, not in tree cover. Deforestation includes
areas of forest converted to agriculture, pasture, water
reservoirs and urban areas.
Sustainable forestry ensures that not only do we
improve carbon sequestration by planting young
trees, but also keep carbon stored in harvested
wood products. And it’s not just
conventional wood and paper that
have this potential.
Cellulose has found application
in textiles, sponges, paint, cosmetics,
pharmaceuticals, detergents and
even laptop screens. And of course,
by recycling paper, carbon in the
paper fibres is kept locked up for
longer. Recycling is not about
“saving trees”.
By using more sustainably
farmed harvested-wood products,
we can take up more carbon, store
more carbon and find low-carbon
solutions for everyday needs. ■
21 KWAZULU-NATAL BUSINESS 2023/24