Timber E-Book

Peter Dauvergne

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Serie: PRS - Polity Resources series
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 279

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Timber is a vital resource that is all around us. It is the house that shelters us, the furniture we relax in, the books we read, the paper we print, the disposable diapers for our babies, and the boxes that contain our cereal, detergent, and new appliances. The way we produce and consume timber, however, is changing. With international timber companies and big box discount retailers increasingly controlling through global commodity chains where and how much timber is traded, the world's remaining old-growth forests, particularly in the developing world, are under threat of disappearing - all for the price of a consumer bargain.

This trailblazing book is the first to expose what's happening inside corporate commodity chains with conclusions that fundamentally challenge our understanding of how and why deforestation persists. Authors Peter Dauvergne and Jane Lister reveal how timber now moves through long and complex supply chains from the forests of the global South through the factories of emerging economies like China to the big box retail shelves of Europe and North America. Well-off consumers are getting unprecedented deals. But the social and environmental costs are extraordinarily high as corporations mine the world's poorest regions and most vulnerable ecosystems.

The growing power of big retail within these commodity chains is further increasing South-North inequities and unsustainable global consumption. Yet, as this book's highly original analysis uncovers, it is also creating some intriguing opportunities to promote more responsible business practices and better global forest governance.

Leseprobe

Timber

Timber

PETER DAUVERGNE AND JANE LISTER

polity

Copyright © Peter Dauvergne and Jane Lister 2011

The right of Peter Dauvergne and Jane Lister to be identified as Authors of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2011 by Polity Press

Polity Press65 Bridge StreetCambridge CB2 1UR, UK

Polity Press350 Main StreetMalden, MA 02148, USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-3769-3

Typeset in 10.25 on 13 pt FF Scalaby Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, CheshirePrinted and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Group Limited, Bodmin, Cornwall

The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.

Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.

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Contents

List of Figures, Tables, and Boxes

Acknowledgments

1  The Global Political Economy of Timber

2  The Power of Big Retail

3  The Northern Forest and Paper Multinationals

4  The Rise of the Third World

5  Consuming the South

6  Governing Timber Consumption

Notes and References

Selected Readings

Index

Figures, Tables, and Boxes

FIGURES

2.1    Percentage global retail sales by country, 2007

2.2    Walmart growth in revenues (1980–2009)

2.3    Home Depot growth in revenues (1988–2008)

2.4    Timber product commodity chain

3.1    Global timber product flow, 2007

3.2    Global timber market size, 2007

3.3    Kimberly-Clark sales growth in BRICIT countries

3.4    China’s increasing forest product imports

3.5    China’s forest and paper exports

4.1    Global leaders in market pulp (2009)

4.2    Third World emerging global pulp exporting countries

4.3    Global paper machine start-ups (2006–2008)

5.1    Global paper and paperboard production

5.2    Global per capita paper and paperboard consumption, 2008

5.3    World oil palm plantation (area harvested)

5.4    World soybean production (area harvested)

5.5    Brazil soybean exports (1997–2009)

5.6    Brazil beef exports (1998–2008)

5.7    Primary forest area by region

5.8    Total annual deforestation in tropical countries (1990–2005)

6.1    Corporate supply chain greening initiatives

TABLES

2.1    The world’s biggest wood retailers

3.1    Top 15 largest global forest and paper companies, 2008

3.2    Global forest, paper and packaging sales by country/region, 2008

3.3    Geographic concentration of pulp and paper production, 2007

3.4    Global operations of the top multinational forest companies, 2009

4.1    Emerging players in the global forest and paper top 100

4.2    China’s born global forest and paper multinationals

4.3    Major Third World forest and paper MNCs

5.1    The top global trade flows in tropical logs, 2007

6.1    Global retail company wood and paper procurement policies

BOXES

2.1   IKEA: out-printing the Bible

3.1   Weyerhaeuser Company: from small roots to global MNC

6.1   Walmart’s environmental goals

6.2   The Home Depot wood purchasing policy (2010)

6.3   Forest certification

Acknowledgments

Many people provided helpful consultation during the drafting of this book, including Graeme Auld, Gary Bull, Linda Castagna, Lars Gulbrandsen, Robert Kozak, Anna Tikina, Ben Toosi, Antje Wahl, Mark White, and Peter Wood. We are grateful to the three anonymous academic reviewers. As well, we would like to acknowledge several additional readers for their generous and insightful reviews of the manuscript, including Bill Cafferata, Linda Coady, Peter Gill, Bruce Lister, Kate Neville, and Natalia Vidal. The book would not have been possible without the patience and support of the staff at the Liu Institute for Global Issues: Rita Zamluk, Patty Gallivan, Sally Reay, Tim Shew, and Julie Wagemakers. And, finally, we would like to thank Louise Knight and David Winters at Polity Press for the opportunity to contribute to this innovative series on the global geopolitics of resources and for their supportive professional guidance throughout the publication process.

CHAPTER ONE

The Global Political Economy of Timber

It is hard to get through a day without relying on timber. It is one of the world’s most versatile natural resources used in everything from home construction, furniture, packaging, books, diapers, hospital gowns, and currency to paint solvents, food, pharmaceuticals, and fuel. It is also one of the world’s most renewable resources. Unlike oil, we will not run out of timber. Brazil alone could meet the world’s total timber demand. Unlike other natural resource crises, adequate supply is not, nor will it become, the critical issue. Rather, the global challenge of timber is about the increasing loss of ecological services, forest biodiversity, and community well-being from the way timber is now logged, traded, produced, and consumed through globalizing commodity chains – production and consumption pathways that are lengthening and multiplying across and between continents as multinational discount retailers like Walmart, Home Depot, and IKEA increasingly turn to the developing world as a source of cheap products to maintain profits and serve bargain-hunting consumers.

Ten thousand years ago, vast, contiguous natural forests blanketed much of the world. The history of timber as a resource worth fighting for began as settled agricultural communities cleared these forests, as towns built forts, and as schooners battled at sea. Yet, even as monarchs took control of timber in some places, in most of the world it remained a shared community resource. Here, few had any reason to fight over what was a renewable and seemingly inexhaustible asset.

Today, more than half of these original forestlands are gone, with deforestation since 1950 roughly equal to all of the previous loss and with many natural forests fragmented or replaced by industrial timber plantations. For temperate and most boreal forests, governments from China to the United States are now enforcing stricter logging rules, reforesting degraded land, and extending parklands. Many problems remain. But, on the whole, the last few decades have seen the management of forests in strong regulatory states – those with a capacity to enforce rules consistently – gradually improve on at least some measures, such as reforestation rates.1

At the same time, management of many tropical forests as well as the Russian boreal forest remains as bad, or is worsening, and deforestation is a greater threat than ever before. Here, some of the poorest communities and most vulnerable ecosystems – in places like the Amazon, Borneo, Siberia, and sub-Saharan Africa – are in a spiraling decline.