Agriculture and Environment: Wood Pulp

Better Management Practices: Eliminate Burning

Burning increases carbon dioxide, degrades soil, decreases soil nitrogen, and kills soil microorganisms.

In addition it creates significant amounts of air pollution and has devastating effects on biodiversity. Increasingly, plantations have adopted no-burn policies, either for plantation establishment or for harvests or both. In some cases, as in Indonesia and Malaysia, this has been regulated by governments.

In Brazil, Riocell S.A. was one of the first pulp mills to eliminate post harvest burning voluntarily (WRI et al. 1998). While the company's internal no-burn policy was not generally accepted in the early 1990s, companies now see the advantages.

Producers have found that the retention of organic matter in the soil more than makes up for the additional costs by reducing the need for expensive fertilizers and irrigation. In fact, the benefits are felt for some time as the organic matter continues to reduce the cost of inputs and increase overall productivity.