ISBN: 9781931498456 Year Added to Catalog: 2003 Book Format: Paperback Number of Pages: 5 x 8 1/4, 160 pages Book Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing Old ISBN: 1931498458 Release Date: October 1, 2003
Facts from Strangely Like War compiled by co-author George Draffan July 22, 2003
THE FORESTS AND THE FOREST SPECIES ARE DISAPPEARING A hectare (two and a half acres) of forest somewhere in the world is cut every second. That’s equivalent to two football fields. One hundred-and-fifty acres cut per minute. That’s 214,000 acres per day: an area larger than New York City.
Seventy-eight million acres (121,875 square miles) deforested each year(page 4).
These countries have lost 99 percent of their native forests: Nigeria, Finland, India.
More than 90 percent lost: China, Vietnam, Laos, Guatemala, Cote d’Ivoire, Taiwan, Sweden, Bangladesh, Central African Republic, United States, Mexico, Argentina, Burma, New Zealand, Costa Rica, Camaroon, Cambodia.
More than 80 percent: Australia, Brunei, Sri Lanka, Zaire, Malaysia, and Honduras.
More than 70 percent: Russia, Indonesia, Nicaragua, Bhutan, and the Congo.
More than 60 percent: Gabon, Papua New Guinea, Panama, Belize, Colombia, and Ecuador.
More than 50 percent: Brazil and Bolivia.
More than 40 percent: Chile, Peru, Canada, and Venezuela(page 9).
More than a hundred species are driven extinct every day; most of them by the loss of forest habitat(pages 10-11).
POOR MANUFACTURING PROCESSES The paper manufacturing industry ranks as one of the biggest consumers of energy and water, and releases millions of pounds of toxic chemicals, yet it has one of the lowest levels of investments in research to improve manufacturing technologies(page 43-33 and 123).
Paper is one of the biggest sources of solid waste in the U.S. yet only about half of the wastepaper in the US is recovered for recycling. US government rules only require ten percent of the paper its agencies purchse be recycled(pages 45 and 122).
Two thirds of the world's paper is manufactured into disposable products such as packaging and tissue. We are committing genocide, ecocide, and global suicide by bllowing our noses and wiping our behinds with ancient forests(page 122).
OVERCONSUMPTION The US, Europe, and Japan are by far the biggest consumers of wood and paper products: with only 16% of the world's population, they consumed over 75% of the wood and paper(page 105).
The average person in the US consumes more than 700 pounds of paper a year; the average in the nonindustrialized countries is 12 pounds(page 122).
SUBSIDIES The same multinational timber companies that are the highest contributors of cash to US political campaigns are the biggest recipients of national forest subsidies from the US government (page 76).
ILLEGAL LOGGING Products made of wood illegally smuggled out of tropical countries is commonly sold in major furniture store chains in Europe and the US (page 83).
Half the world's logging is done illegally; illegal logging is common in the US, Indonesia, Africa, Cambodia(pages 23, 28, 40, 53, 79, 83, 97,99).
UNSUSTAINABLE MANAGEMENT Less than ten percent of the world's forests have been certified as being sustainably managed(page 129).
The world's international treaties and agreements concerning forest management are not legally binding upon the signatory nations(page 133).
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