Americans purchase old growth wood products from Brazil such as mahogany and some types of plywood. Pulped old growth rainforests go into toilet paper and cellulose products, including rayon, camera film and cigarette filters.
Around the world, old growth forests are falling at an alarming rate. Reports indicate that burning in the Brazilian Amazon has increased 28 percent since 1996. In the ancient temperate rainforests of British Columbia, a timber industry spokesman recently indicated that more than 85 percent of the trees cut down are old growth. Only 22 percent of the world's old growth forests remain intact; in the United States, less than 4 percent of the old growth forests are still standing.
2. Commercial logging should become the exception, not the rule. That should be especially true with regard to pristine areas not logged already.