If you heard that printing more is actually good for the environment, how would you react? With skepticism? Maybe. But it turns out this is true. Healthy forests provide goods and services that are vital to the health of the planet and human livelihood. Tree forests are natural assets we call ecosystem services.
Go paper, go trees explains this concept. Take a look at this video. Using paper helps landowners afford to keep these ecosystems intact and healthy. In the U.S., 90% of wood harvested is done by private landowners — the keepers of more than half of these ecosystems. Growing trees for income allows them to use more sustainable forestry practices. Over 4 million trees are replanted by these private tree farmers every day. And that increases the ecosystem value while providing a renewable resource for products we use every day such as paper.
And when paper use goes down, what happens? Land formerly planted with trees is instead, sold for development. And once developed, this contributes to the decline of approximately 35 percent of all imperiled native US species.
So — go paper, go trees! Print, be green and be merry!