Forests in Turmoil

In regard to the article in your October edition “Newspapers in Turmoil,” if daily newspapers are in trouble, first and foremost they should be in trouble for destroying old-growth Canadian forests. Most newsprint used in the U.S. comes from Canada, and ninety percent of all logging in Canada is done with clear-cutting. Newsprint, which is the paper used to make newspapers, has an average recycled content that runs between zero and thirty percent. So many daily newspapers in America (more than sixty million of them) are seventy percent virgin forest. Nothing eats more forests than daily newspapers, they may be the most destructive and wasteful product in America. Newsprint is the principal wood product that comes out of Ontario, and the boreal forest in Northern Ontario is being destroyed. Our local papers get much of their newsprint from Northern Ontario, and continue to write editorials about saving America forests, while they are playing a large part in the destruction of the last intact old-growth forest in North America … odd.

Frank Erickson