Climate change or paper industry: Who is to blame for Canadian wildfires?

15 Jun 2023 --- Canada has been facing widespread and destructive fires raging for weeks with some civil society organizations and NGOs stressing the urgency for sustainable forest management and Indigenous leadership, while others blame industrial logging, which weakens trees and sparks fires. 

The Canadian wildfires have resulted in forest land loss seven times greater than the annual sustainable harvest by Canadian foresters, according to Derek Nighbor, president and CEO of the Forest Products Association of Canada (FPAC).

When asked whether he believes the paper industry has a partial responsibility in the fires, Nighbor tells us that it is “quite the opposite. Sustainable forest management is one of the most powerful tools to address this growing risk to human health and lives.”

“Simply protecting forests across a natural fire-prone region like the boreal is neither an effective climate strategy, nor an effective public safety plan. This is further supported by findings of Parks Canada that show many of Canada’s parks are now net carbon sources due to worsening natural disturbances. We need more active sustainable forest management, not less.”

Most of Canada’s paper packaging comes from recycled materials, says PPEC.Canadian paper production 
Most of Canada’s paper packaging is produced with recycled content, a spokesperson at the Paper and Paperboard Packaging Environmental Council (PPEC), tells Packaging Insights.

“Although the paper fibers originally came from a tree, the Canadian paper packaging industry doesn’t use many freshly cut trees, and the little that is harvested must be successfully regenerated.”

However, Greenpeace Canada says that the packaging products the industry purchases come largely from industrial logging, which reduces forests’ overall resilience. “In parts of Canada, the forests are even sprayed with herbicides that suppress fire-resistant tree species and therefore increase more fire-prone monocultures for the industry to log,” Shane Moffat, head of the nature and food campaign at Greenpeace Canada, tells us. 

But PPEC highlights that the council’s research shows that most of Canada’s three major paper packaging grades are made from recycled content (81.7%) and not virgin trees. “The mixture of using primarily recycled content, along with some new fibers from sustainably managed forests, is an important component to paper packaging’s circular economy,” says PPEC.

FPAC’s president and CEO Nighbor adds that the recent closure of a paper mill south of the Canada/US border in North Carolina, US, has had foresters talking about how important these mills are to keeping forests healthy and resilient. 

Sustained and collective effort needed
To solve the problem of forest fires, Moffat says GHG emissions that are stoking the fires need to be reduced. “We also need to stop treating the forest as a disposable commodity for industry and instead put in place much stronger protections to ensure its natural defenses to fires are working well.”

“In Canada and around the world, this requires returning forests to the governance of Indigenous Peoples, many of whom have developed sophisticated fire management practices over thousands of years,” stresses Moffat. 

Fires are the second largest disturbance to Canada’s forests.Nighbor agrees that Indigenous leadership in Canada’s fire mitigation effort is vital to collective success. “Many Indigenous communities hold generations of knowledge about the land and forests, offering a deep understanding of how the forest evolves and how it can be managed in a way that is both environmentally and economically sustainable.”

“We also need to better support and fund Indigenous communities and municipalities to build fire breaks around their communities through thinning and more active management of regional forests. This is expensive work and these communities that continue to face downloading pressures cannot afford to go it alone. It’s going to take a sustained effort,” asserts Nighbor.

Forest management 
Across nine provinces and two territories, nearly 440 fires have burned approximately 4.7 million hectares of forest (so far), according to Nighbor. The fires led to hazardous air quality levels, affecting tens of millions of people in Canada and the Northern and Midwestern regions of the US. In the Canadian province of Nova Scotia alone, over 260 families have been displaced.

But wildland fires are a natural part of the forest ecosystem and important in many parts of Canada for maintaining the health and diversity of the forest. Prescribed fires offer a valuable resource management tool for enhancing ecological conditions and eliminating excessive fuel build-up, reads the Canadian government website.

The PPEC spokesperson says: “As the paper packaging industry, we are closely watching the current situation with forest fires across Canada. Sustainable forest management is essential to the paper-based packaging industry and our circular economy,” they say. 

After insects, the second largest disturbance to Canada’s forests is fires. The latest data from Natural Resources Canada’s State of the Forests Annual Report indicates that more than 4.3 million hectares of forests, or 1.19% of Canada’s forests, were impacted by fires, highlights the PPEC spokesperson.

“Climate change can further impact the frequency and severity of natural disturbances as changes in weather and temperature can cause droughts and drier conditions, which can cause wildfires to release GHG emissions.” 

By Natalie Schwertheim