00:00Hundreds of millions of packages travel the globe each day,
00:05products and food delivered right to your door.
00:09But the raw materials for boxes like these are disappearing.
00:16Like here in Sweden.
00:18For these unspoiled pine forests, found mostly in the north,
00:22the clock is ticking.
00:25Clear-cutting in many regions is leaving behind vast barren landscapes.
00:30Sometimes these areas are replanted with crop trees.
00:35But the old growth forest is long gone.
00:39It's been a forest here since after the Ice Age for thousands of years.
00:43So this ecosystem we're standing in is ancient.
00:47And if we clear-cut it, we break this ecological eternity, kind of.
00:57Daniel Lutschmann from the Protect the Forest Action Group
01:01is drilling deep into this tree to determine its age.
01:08This area is set to be cleared soon for the Swedish paper industry.
01:14I mean, this tree is 400 years old.
01:17And this may well be what it will be turned into.
01:20We'll never know for sure,
01:22because tracking what the Swedish wood and cellulose industry does
01:25with an individual trunk isn't possible.
01:30Biologists warn against clear-cutting old growth forests.
01:34They say the ecological value of these stands is much greater
01:38than that of commercial timberlands undergoing regular clearing.
01:43And that it takes an old growth forest 100 years to recover again.
01:48This map shows the clearings from the past 50 years
01:52in Lutschmann's home province of Västernorrland.
01:56Nature conservation organizations say at least 2%
02:00of valuable continuity forests are lost each year.
02:06Lutschmann's work is rarely done.
02:09He continues his tracking of logging companies' activities
02:12in the evening at home.
02:15So I'm looking at recent notifications for final felling.
02:22We see that SCR now has, of their notification for final felling,
02:26about 37% is within these continuity forests.
02:31And since there's not very much left of these forests,
02:33this means every year we're losing crucial areas
02:38for preserving our biodiversity.
02:40The Swedish company SCA faces frequent criticism.
02:44It owns 10% of all forests in Sweden.
02:47In promotional clips, SCA presents itself as a responsible industrial company,
02:53one that protects rather than exploits the forest
02:56and ships sustainable paper products throughout the world.
03:01The company declined requests for an interview
03:04and issued a written statement instead.
03:08The portion of continuity forests that may still be subject to forestry
03:12undergoes a nature value assessment,
03:15and management methods are adjusted based on the values present at the site.
03:19In cases where high nature values are identified,
03:22the land is set aside.
03:26The company makes note of an international certification system
03:30for more sustainable forestry,
03:32which is also observed in logging, so-called FSC certificates.
03:37The FSC logo can be found on many products all over the world,
03:41such as milk cartons.
03:44But Rytman says the verification system has failed to save forests,
03:49at least in Sweden.
03:51He regularly observes SCA logging valuable continuity forests,
03:55informing officials managing the certification process of the violations.
04:03So they warn SCA, and then they say,
04:07OK, we won't do it again. But then they do it again, of course.
04:11And we see this, this is just happening over and over again.
04:14It doesn't matter how many times we catch them logging trees
04:18that are not allowed, according to the FSC.
04:23Forest exploitation has other victims too,
04:26like Sweden's unique reindeer and the indigenous Sami reindeer herders.
04:33Per Mikkel Oren is one of them.
04:36His herd has been grazing on their own for the past half hour.
04:40In the winter, the reindeer feed on lichens hanging from trees.
04:46Before logging on Sami lands,
04:48companies must obtain consent from reindeer herders.
04:52That's the FSC rule.
04:55But it isn't always followed.
04:58These few thousand hectares were cleared without our consent.
05:05When a forest is logged, the lichens on the ground are mostly destroyed.
05:14And the next step is to plant a commercial forest,
05:18or more precisely, plantations.
05:21Those then suffocate the remaining nourishment for the reindeer.
05:26The clear-cutting of Swedish continuity forests
05:29threatens the survival of some 1,400 animal and plant species.
05:34Biologists are sounding the alarm.
05:39If you look at the forest,
05:42you can see that there is a lot of vegetation,
05:46and that means that locally,
05:49species are getting extinct.
05:52And if you add that to a larger forest,
05:55it means that the forest is dying.
05:58And that's the problem.
06:00If you look at the forest,
06:02you can see that there is a lot of vegetation,
06:05and that means that the forest is dying.
06:08And if you add that to a larger forest,
06:11it means that the forest is dying.
06:14And if you add that to a larger scale,
06:17you have a larger number of individuals of these species lost.
06:26Swedish authorities reject accusations
06:29they're not sufficiently protecting the forest.
06:32They argue it's difficult to distinguish
06:35between valuable old growth and less valuable commercial forests.
06:40Take, for example, in an extreme case,
06:44a forest no person has ever set foot in,
06:48but where one tree was felled 100 years ago.
06:52And on the other hand,
06:55an area that has been clear-cut except for one old tree.
07:00There are all sorts of variations between these two examples.
07:05How can we clearly determine
07:08when a forest has such a high ecological value
07:12that we shouldn't manage it?
07:15Conservationists regularly hang warning signs on very old trees,
07:20hoping workers will then work around them.
07:24Others block the path for forest-clearing machines.
07:30They say old growth forests play a major role
07:34in protecting the climate, too.
07:37So from a climate perspective,
07:40the forests are both carbon sinks
07:43that sequester carbon from the atmosphere.
07:46And they're huge storages of carbon,
07:49which is stored in the trees we see
07:52and it's in the soil and the mycelium below us.
07:56So if we log this, we lose the carbon stock.
08:01Most Swedes are proud of their extensive woodlands,
08:05but as conservationist Daniel Rutschmann explains,
08:09if current practices continue,
08:12the country will soon see its forests
08:15entirely replaced by plantations.
08:18One of SCA's biggest clients
08:20is Swiss food and beverage conglomerate Nestle,
08:23which declined requests for an interview.
08:30In a written statement responding to our concerns
08:33that old growth trees might end up in their packaging,
08:37the company said it's working on alternatives made from recyclables.
08:45We also actively work with our direct suppliers
08:48to incorporate responsible forest sourcing strategies
08:51and practices in northern Sweden.
08:55But Daniel Rutschmann is skeptical.
08:58He hopes consumers will take action,
09:01reassess their consumption habits,
09:03exert more pressure,
09:05and thereby protect what is left
09:08of Sweden's old growth forests.
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