Paper is a wonderful material, which for centuries has served for a fertile exchange of ideas among human beings. For us all who use it as an essential vehicle to share what we think, imagine, dream, know or believe we know, paper is a wonderful tool that we want to be able to continue using ... but not at the expense of people and the environment.
As people who live in this reality, we are aware of the serious injustices and inequalities - social and environmental – arising from the world production and consumption of paper.
In addition to the destruction of forests for making paper, now forests and grasslands are being replaced by vast monoculture tree plantations, destroying communities, water, soil and all life. Both the destruction of forests and the installation of monoculture tree plantations – occupying food-producing land – bring about enormous damage to the local population, who see their rights violated, their environment destroyed and their way of life irremediably affected.
The destructive cycle is continued with pulp production, in which fewer and increasingly larger companies take possession of land where they plant trees, of water that their trees and mills consume and contaminate, of political power acquired through their billion dollar investments, and of the environment that they destroy in the regions where they are installed.
To destruction are added inequities. The enormous volume of paper produced from this pulp feeds a “world market” centred on rich and powerful peoples’ consumption. The average figures (that hide enormous inequalities on a national level), show that consumption per capita is more than ten times higher in the countries of the North than in those of the South.
To inequity is added excessive consumption. Only as an example it is enough to see the mountains of paper and cardboard growing night after night in the streets of New York to understand that most of the pulp production does not end up as books, newspapers or journals, but simply as trash. In general terms, at least half the pulp produced goes to the production of paper and cardboard for wrapping and packaging, most of it totally unnecessary.
We do not want to have anything to do with paper produced in this way. We do not want to become accomplices to the social and environmental destruction this implies. We do not trust certification schemes that have given their seal of “sustainability” to these same monoculture plantations whose impacts we know so well.
This situation has already reached intolerable limits and its solution requires policies discouraging unnecessary consumption, promoting a rational and socially appropriate use of paper, ensuring an equitable use among countries and within countries, facilitating the development of diversified models on a smaller scale for the production of pulp, respecting both people and the environment.
The above is perfectly feasible and no technical limitations of any kind exist to prevent it from becoming a reality. The only and real obstacle is the economic interest of large companies, whose objective is to continue making profits by imposing an increasingly large and unlimited consumption of paper. The time has come to tell them that this is enough.
We are therefore appealing to those, who like us want to be able to continue communicating through this marvellous material called paper, to join in this struggle for a socially and environmentally clean paper.
166 signs up to 10 th October 2008
Victor Bacchetta, Uruguay
Nnimmo Bassey, Nigeria
Jordi Bigues, Cataluña
Elizabeth Bravo, Ecuador
Ricardo Carrere, Uruguay
Antonio Franco, Spain
Mempo Giardinelli, Argentina
François Houtart, Belgium
John Karumbizda, South Africa
Kintto Lucas, Uruguay
George Monbiot, United Kingdom
Edgar Morin, Francia
Guillemo Núñez, Chile
Wale Okediran, Nigeria
Ike Okonta, Nigeria
Noel Rajesh, India
Ana Cristina Rossi, Costa Rica
Vandana Shiva,. India
Lucas Chiappe, Argentina
Jaime E. García ,Costa Rica
Jorge Vicente, Argentina
Chris Lang, Germany
Mandy Haggith ,Scotland
Florencia Ruiz, Argentina
Silvana Buján, Argentina
Noemi Abad, Argentina
Jorge H. Rabey, Argentina
Susana Colombo, Argentina
Alejandro Alvarez Durante, Argentina
Olga Pareja, Uruguay
Brousse Stéphane, France
María Isabel Cárcamo, Uruguay
Béatrice Nys, Switzerland
Evelyne Monnay, Switzerland
Julie Rieder, Switzerland
Zuleica Nycz, Brazil
Tomas Pimpignano, Argentina
Joaquin Pimpignano, Argentina
Osvaldo Nicolas Pimpignano, Argentina
Julian Gonzalez, Argentina
Carmen Natividad Campos, Argentina
Genty Emilie, France
Emmanuelle Grundmann, France
Hebert Abimorad, Sweden
Nemesio J. Rodríguez Mitchell, Mexico
Zohelio Jaimes Chavez, Mexico
Eduardo Surroca, Uruguay
Alda Rodríguez, Nicaragua
Crystal Johnsson, Argentina
Alicia da Cruz, Uruguay
Antonio Graziano, Uruguay/Italy
José Julio Garategui, Uruguay
Pedro Goenaga, Argentina
José da Cruz, Uruguay
Hernán Sorhuet, Uruguay
Julio Rodríguez Saiz, Spain
Clara Riveros Sosa, Argentina
Marcus Colchester, United Kingdom
Lorena Salgado, Costa Rica
Mario Martínez Sobrino, Cuba
Gregorio Echeverría, Argentina
Rossana Echevarria, Uruguay
Adrián Néstor Escudero, Argentina
Eduardo Gudynas, Uruguay
João Luiz Monti, Brazil
Jerome Hutin, France
Sophie Osmont, France
Sophie Fabregat, France
Jean-François Crételle, France
Bina, India
Cheryl Morris; South Africa
Vincent Mark Abedi, Ghana
Monroe Jeffrey, U.S.A.
Alejandra Parra Muñoz, Chile
Jeff Conant, U.S.A.
Orin Langelle, U.S.A.
Claudia von Werlhof, Austria
Jo Ripley, U.S.A.
Wilbur Zielke, U.S.A.
Eleonora Serrati, Italy
Laura Moreno, Brazil
Carolyn Moran; U.S.A.
Ricardo Natalichio, Argentina
Marina Pose, Uruguay
Jean-François Crételle - France
Lambert Weiss - France
Judy Hindley - United Kingdom
Roberto Giubergia V. - Chile
Alicia Borges Figueroa - Uruguay
Enrique Winter - Chile
Mba Victorien - Cameroun
Coco Hall - USA
Jeff Conant - USA
Leigh Phillips - Belgium
Jeremy Bird - United Kingdom
Jiri Zemanek - Czech Republik
Ian Burfield - United Kingdom
Ricardo Sequeiros Coelho - Portugal
Claudio Huerta Valenzuela - Chile
Carmen Salzano - Venezuela
Miryám Hess - Brazil
Luis E. Sabini Fernández - Uruguay/Argentina/Sweden
Karel Stibral - Czech Republic
Karen Mackey - USA
Despoina Mertzanidou -Greece
Anatoly Lebedev - Russia
Eleni Papadatou - Greece
Karen Mackey - USA
Marcela Parra - Chile
Jay Griffiths - United Kingdom
Carlos A. Llerena - Peru
Ana Zita Bermúdez - Costa Rica
Nemesio Juan Rodríguez Mitchell - Mexico
Violeta Valenzuela - Italy
Morgan Gunnarsson - Sweden
Piergiuorgio Helzel - Brazil
Peter Gerhardt - Germany
Mwayafu David - Uganda
Laura Moya - Argentina
Carlos U. Leoni - Argentina
Edu Olavo - Brazil
Felipe Amaral - Brazil
Néstor Ocampo Giraldo - Colombia
Dante H. Vídez Roca - Bolivia
Bianca Peres - Brazil
Xanat Antonio - Mexico
Yela - Peru
Marielle Lansink - Germany
Miquel Guerrero - Cataluña (Spain)
Oscar Salzgeber - Argentina
Kaj Dorstenia - Denmark
Gabriela Ascóniga - Venezuela
Hudi DW - Indonesia
Laura Jara Suazo - Argentina
Robson Bauer Zilli - Brazil
Sabina Rasmussen - Colombia
Juan Gabriel Ixcamparij - Guatemala
Dolores Riera - Spain
Nathalya Rocha - Brazil
Paloma Pavez Riquelme - Chile
Wendy Attwell - United Kingdom
Adriana Salvino - Argentina
Mwayafu David - Uganda
Guillermo Martinez - Argentina
Martin Gloeckle - Germany
Sue Gullett - United Kingdom
Zoe Laker - United Kingdom
Jeffrey Allen - Canada
Lidia Tisserand - France
Susanne McCrea - Canada
Fernando Márquez - Colombia
Pablo Noble - Uruguay
Osvaldo Nicolas Pimpignano - Argentina
Kareen Urrutia - Guatemala
Alejandro Oviedo - Argentina
Malú Sierra - Chile
Een Irawan Putra - Indonesia
Dwi Lesmana - Indonesia
Jelle Wever - The Netherlands
Cíntia Pereira Barenho - Brazil
Alejandra Jerez - Argentina
Carlos Fazio - Mexico
Mirta Alina Batavalle - Argentina
Danilo Rueda - Colombia
Julian Kunnie - USA
Carlos Rasqual Diéguez - Cuba
