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Is your loo roll flushing the forests down the toilet?

Posted by Lina Burnelius - 27th September 2017


You smell it first – the smell of recently splintered trees is so strong that it hits me long before I reach the logging site. Tree stumps are still sticky with resin. A few hours ago this was a lush forest with trees that had stood tall for over a hundred years. Now it’s a barren wasteland.

It’s heartbreaking, because I know that the forest is home to so much life: lynx, sprightly birds and insects, and even tiny mushrooms and lichen that are the bedrock of the forest. It will take decades for this place to become a vibrant, living ecosystem again.

The logging paper trail leads straight to the UK supermarket shelves. Velvet, the luxury toilet paper is owned by Essity, a Swedish tissue and paper giant. Essity could play a key role in stopping the destruction of the Great Northern Forest, in Sweden, Finland, Russia and elsewhere across this green crown of the planet. Essity is sourcing pulp from companies that are expanding their logging operations into critical areas of forests that are vital for biodiversity.

Where I’m from in Sweden, most of the forest has been cut down and turned into industrial tree plantations. That’s a major problem for most forest species because they simply cannot survive in these plantations. The last remaining areas of old-growth forests are small and scattered.

We urgently need to protect them, for the many precious species of plant, insect, and animals that depend on them for their survival. But this tragedy is not only happening in Sweden. It’s happening across all of the Great Northern Forest including in Finland and Russia, where Essity also sources its pulp.

Huge global companies such as Essity have a responsibility to ensure their suppliers don’t continue to log the last remaining critical forest landscapes.

By signing our petition, you can tell Essity to clean up their global supply chain and we will deliver your demands straight to the CEO himself.

It’s not that difficult, really. Essity could choose to protect life in the forest and still make Velvet, Cushelle, and its dozens of other household brands across Europe. And they could produce more tissue from recycled paper.

Please join our petition to tell Essity to stop wiping away the Great Northern Forest.

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