FSC protects & perserves forests

Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) helps makes forestry profitable and sustainable. Through its forest certification process and the subsequent consumer support of FSC certified wood products, well run and sustainable forest are profitable. Profitable forests remain as forest land and avoid the all too common occurrence where forest land becomes more valuable as developed land and is sold to developers by its owners. When you support FSC wood products, specifically paper, you are supporting the existence of well managed forests and you are helping to keep forests as forests. Your buying decisions make a difference.

Some groups have fought to stop forestry on some privately owned lands. When these groups are successful the land lays fallow and becomes unprofitable. This can lead to lands being sold for development or uses other than forestry.

The sale of Finch Paper's Adirondack forests is a rare exception where the land is sold by the forester and is purchased by a responsible steward of the forest. As reported in my last post Finch Paper sold its 161,000 acres of prime Adirondacks forest land to the Nature Conservancy. I believe Finch's property was a well run, FSC forest, which was put on the market to raise cash for the new owners of Finch Paper and reduce the debt they incurred buying the company.

What would have happened if the Nature Conservancy did not find the funding for the $110 million price tag? Can you imagine the feeding frenzy, that this last and largest private parcel of Adirondack land, would have sparked from a variety of private interests looking to monetize this property.

The issue of forestry and environmental stewardship is complicated. The Forest Stewardship Council has created a scenario where being responsible is not just the "right thing to do" but it is also the profitable thing to do. FSC products preserve forests and help to stem development.

Here is an intersting article to further decribe this issue.

Finch Paper sells 161,000 acres in Adirondack Park

Largest Private Land Holdings in the Adirondacks

Yesterday Finch Paper announced that they sold 161,000 acres of forest land to the Nature Conservancy for $110 million. Finch Paper has been a solid steward of this property for more than 100 years when the company Finch Holding first began accumulating Adirondack land for timber harvesting.

In what has been described as the largest private land holding in the Adirondack Park is now in the hands of the Nature Conservancy for the rest of time. This parcel is a beautiful forest and is filled with hills, streams and gorges. This is prime Adirondack forest and the purchase by the Nature Conservancy will protect this parcel from future development.

This sale comes just a matter of weeks after the family owned Finch Paper was sold to a private equity group. The stated intention of the new owners of Finch Paper is to maintain paper production at its Glenn Falls, NY paper mill. It is not uncommon for paper companies to sell off timber lands and this sale of the 161,00 acres would be consistent with this recent industry trend.

HOW Design Conference Videos

See Exclusive HOW Conference Videos

Nothing beats attending the HOW show to experience the energy and to have the opportunity to talk to other people in graphic design from around the country and the world. Even if you attended, did you get to talk to the paper mills during the mad rush? Did you get to hear what some of the industries biggest names had to say? Maybe and maybe not.

We have some great videos to give you an insiders view of the conference no matter where you were last week. See our exclusive HOW Design Conference videos.

HOW Design Conference 2007

We came back from the HOW Design Conference Wednesday. Travel was smooth except for the bomb scare in the Atlanta airport that caused the longest security line I've seen since getting back into the USA from Europe the days after September 11th. We found some great places in Atlanta. We stayed at the Glenn Hotel Friday and Saturday, the roof cocktail bar is outstanding. YUPO held a party there one night. Couches and views as far as you can see. As well the Atalanta Botanical garden is a must see. However all Northerners should be sure to get there early in the day as by 4:00 pm the heat was oppressive. One of the best orchid collections I've ever seen.

Last but not least as places to go is Rathbuns for great dinners, good wines and a great atmosphere. Its neighbor the Krog bar is a must for a pre or post dinner cocktail. This is a great place to meet friends or take your special someone. Great service. We went there 2 nights.

The HOW conference was great from our point of view as suppliers exhibiting. We met with a huge number of graphic designers in our booth, we gave away two sets of TINTBOOKS, winners to be announced, and we created 10 exclusive videos speaking with industry observers and paper mills, etc. We're going to post these videos Sunday night.

Paper & Envelopes Videos

We've posted the first in a series of educational videos for graphics professionals, students and everyone interested in seeing how things happen. The videos provide an inside view of how paper is made, how envelopes are made and other secondary processes related to graphic design and the paper industry. We visited Neenah Paper's newly acquired Appleton Paper mill, formally owned by Fox River Paper company. We also visited the National Envelope envelope manufacturing plant in Appleton, Wisconsin.

It's amazing how prolific the paper industry is in this part of the country. Even though the landscape is almost perfectly flat the area is known as the Paper Valley. We located our business in Neenah, WI (the Paper Valley) because of the large number of paper related companies, businesses and professionals concentrated in the relatively small geographic area.