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Audubon Looks at its Sourcing The January-February issue of Audubon magazine takes a daring look at the environmental impact of its own paper supply-which comes from Mead Paper's mill in Escanaba, Michigan. In the course of his woods tour, reporter Donovan Webster finds harvesting today much improved over what "has been done historically," and at the manufacturing end, he notes the virtual elimination of chlorine emissions, explains and justifies the low proportion of recycled furnish in magazine papers, and remarks that "fish caught in the Escanaba River downriver from the mill have been tested and deemed safe to eat by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality." On larger forest management issues, he spends some time with the mill's general manager of woodlands, Jim Okraszewski, who cautiously explains select cutting, clearcutting, and replanting; introduces Webster to Mead's landowner assistance program; and opens up the reasons Mead prefers the Sustainable Forestry InitiativeSM standard to the Forest Stewardship Council's. Webster then takes his own, unsupervised, look at culverts, wildlife, and water quality on Mead lands and offers the following assessment: "As tough as I want to be on Mead, its forestry practices-beyond planting monocultures and logging on public lands-are as clean as they can be under current technologies and legislation." Considering Audubon's institutional biases, this is not bad. Back to "News" Forest Resources Association
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