Biodiversity

How does Sappi conserve biodiversity on the land it owns and manages? 

In South Africa where we are one of the country’s major landowners, we own and lease approximately 400,000 hectares (ha) of land, of which about 261,600 ha are planted. The remainder is unplanted natural areas totalling approximately 138,000 ha that are managed for biodiversity conservation. All this land – planted and unplanted – is FSC and PEFC certified.

Some of the many ways we invest and act on our commitment to biodiversity conservation include:

• Maintaining about 160 Important Conservation Areas (ICAs) including seven nature reserves on our plantations.
• Monitoring water quality: We use the aquatic biomonitoring South African Scoring System (SASS) methodology to determine the composition of macroinvertebrate in rivers on our landholdings, as well as river health. Understanding what species occur within our smaller river systems helps us understand the important value of aquatic ecosystems and where possible to implement management actions to reduce our impact on the natural environment. We also involve local schools in mini-SASS monitoring programmes.
• Developing and implementing long-term integrated weed management plans on all our plantations as invasive alien plants are widely considered as a major threat to biodiversity, human livelihoods and economic development.
• Maintaining and enhancing soil function – a crucial component of sustainable forest management and biodiversity, because soil is the foundation of the forest system. The trees we grow in our plantations are deep-rooted and long-lived with little or no mechanical cultivation occurring. As a result, the structure of soils is maintained or improved, while topsoil nutrients are increased as nutrients and minerals are taken up deep within the soil profile. Trees are also able to take up nutrients from relatively acidic soil (soil with low pH) and are thus able to grow on degraded soils that are unsuitable for agriculture.
• Partnering with the South African National Biodiversity Institute and other plantation owners through Forestry South Africa, to mainstream biodiversity into the forestry sector.  This includes the stewardship programme, which facilitates the proclamation of nature reserves and protected areas on forestry land.

Towards Sappi’s 2025 biodiversity conservation target, we have committed to enhancing, biodiversity in conservation areas on our landholdings by 10% by 2025. We have mapped our baseline and are developing and implementing management plans. From a conservation management perspective, our priority is to identify those vegetation types that are least protected and of greatest conservation importance and prioritise efforts to safeguard those types. 

How do Sappi and our suppliers conserve biodiversity in the forests and plantations where woodfibre is sourced?

FAO reports that the forest biodiversity varies significantly according to factors like forest type, geography, climate and soils, and about 60% of all vascular plants are found in tropical forests. According to WWF, tropical rainforests are perhaps the most endangered habitat on Earth and most vulnerable to deforestation. 

Sappi neither harvests nor buys woodfibre which originates from tropical natural forests, and our wood sourcing causes zero deforestation. Our commitment to zero deforestation means knowing the source of woodfibre and ensuring that suppliers implement practices to promptly regenerate forests post-harvest, which is required under the global forest certification standards that Sappi upholds. All Sappi’s mills are certified under one or more of the leading global Chain of Custody (CoC) standards, including the FSC, PEFC, and the SFI systems. In addition, all the woodfibre we procure for use in our pulp, paper, packaging and speciality products is traceable to its origin and is sourced from legal, controlled, non-controversial sources in accordance with the FSC Controlled Wood Standard, as well as PEFC (and SFI in the United States of America) risk-based due diligence systems.

Sappi’s rigorous internal due diligence systems identify and mitigate risk of controversial sources in Sappi’s fibre stream and include risk assessments for rare species and habitats that may be threatened by management activities (e.g. ecologically important forest areas defined by PEFC and high conservation values identified by FSC Controlled Wood National Risk Assessments). Additional actions we take to conserve biodiversity through our woodfibre sourcing include:

• Sappi North America’s certification to the SFI Fiber Sourcing Standard includes proactive measures to promote and conserve biodiversity at landscape-scale via requirements for smallholder (landowner) outreach, the use of trained loggers and resource professionals, investment in forest research and adherence to best management practices (BMPs) during harvesting operations.
• Collaborating with SFI Implementation Committees (SIC) and other partners on innovative research and conservation projects.
  • Conducting an assessment of imperilled species and native plant communities across our wood and fibre supply areas in North America to better conserve biodiversity at both local and landscape levels.
  • Funding the deployment of trail cameras to survey carnivore species in areas across the state of Maine to assess, among other things, how timber harvesting may influence carnivore distributions of conservation interest.
  • Supporting a thirteen-year effort to develop and complete a comprehensive survey of every road-stream crossing in the state of Maine.  This database, managed by The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and known as the Fisheries Improvement Network (FIN), is not only the first in the country but also one of the largest in the world.  FIN, as an up-to-date database, will be critical in allocating limited funding to the most important places on public and private lands and help managers target the best opportunities for improving fish habitat.
  • Successfully connecting the efforts of teachers and youth to indigenous cultures and sustainability and building bat-boxes that help battle white-nose syndrome, a disease caused by a fungus that affects hibernating bats. 

How else is Sappi contributing to nature and biodiversity recovery?

Through partnership and active collaboration, we seek to accelerate change and build solutions to the challenges facing our planet. Some of the related initiatives where we are currently active includes:

• Sappi, together with other Forest Solutions Group members of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), is working to shape a strategy on how the forest sector can best contribute to a “Nature Positive” future. The forest sector has an important role to play in achieving the Global Goal for Nature: Zero net loss of nature from 2020, net positive by 2030, and full recovery by 2050. The objective of our collaboration is to create a roadmap to support companies in the forest sector in setting science-based (SBTN aligned) nature related goals and targets, contributing to halting and reversing nature loss, and disclosing progress through quantifiable impacts and outcomes. Phase 1 of this Roadmap was published in 2022 and provides a comprehensive definition of nature positive. Subsequent phases will focus on implementation and supporting the relevant developments from, i.e the Science Based Targets Network (SBTN) and the Taskforce on Nature related Financial Disclosure (TNFD).
• We are a signatory to Business for Nature’s Call to Action, a global coalition of non-governmental organisations and business groups. The initiative calls on governments to adopt policies now to reverse nature loss in this decade. We have also signed up for the Make it Mandatory campaign which supports Target 15 of the Global Biodiversity Framework committing governments to require all large businesses and financial institutions to assess and disclose their risks, impacts and dependencies on biodiversity by 2030.
• We have supported the Textile Exchange in launching a new tool to help the fashion and textile industry take urgent action on biodiversity. The Biodiversity Benchmark will enable companies to understand their impacts and dependencies on nature, chart a pathway to delivering positive biodiversity outcomes and benchmark their progress.

In South Africa specifically, we're reintroducing endangered Pepper-Bark trees that are endemic to the forests in the region.