There is as much confusion, misinformation and Greenwash relating to virgin fibre, as there is with recycled fibre.  

According to the paper industry, European forested areas are increasing at the rate of 1.5 million football pitches a year. (The often quoted figure of ‘three trees planted for each one cut down’ is misleading as many new trees fail.)

This growth is driven by demand for timber for construction and wood for use as fuel. Around 25% of the wood used for paper manufacture comes from the by-products of these processes. Of the remainder, 40-50% comes from commercial thinning.

That the European forestry industry is concerned about environmental issues, and has improved its performance in recent years, is not open to question; and commercial plantations play an important economic and environmental role. However, the issues are that:

• Considering the increasing rates of commercial plantations, there should be no need to log natural forests (or forests of high conservation value – whatever the definition of high conservation value)
• There are questions around certification. The percentage of certified forestry is small (but increasing) and the most common certification schemes have some crucial differences. For example, FSC does not certify industrial plantations on land converted from natural forestry. View WWF's PEFC critique here

It’s important to remember that:

• although environmental organisations promote and support FSC, they do not say it is perfect, but that it is the best forestry certification scheme in terms of social and environmental issues.
• that certified fibre, for which the origin can be tracked via a Chain of Custody, is preferable to uncertified fibre of possibly unknown origin.