Issue link: http://palletcentral.uberflip.com/i/666889
40 PalletCentral • March-April 2016 palletcentral.com he Pallet Foundation recently celebrated the release of Nature's Packaging, a North American initiative to develop and deliver sound, fact-based materials to businesses, the public and public officials. The Nature's Packaging website – naturespackaging.org – is the one-stop information resource for marketing support regarding environmental questions.. The project was developed with support of The Pallet Foundation, the National Wooden Pallet & Container Association (NWPCA), the Canadian Wood Pallet and Container Association (CWPCA), and Western Pallet Association (WPA). The unifying vision is for the expanded use of wood packaging to improve the environment while delivering the growing needs of global distribution. The tools on the site are designed to increase the use of wooden packaging through educating and informing customers, packaging specialists and packaging students of wood's environmental benefits As noted by Mike Sheldon of Olympic Forests Products, "Nature's Packaging benefits us by providing concrete data to share with others on how wood is the renewable, responsible choice." Nature's Packaging launched on March 1 during the NWPCA ALC in Orlando, Florida, March 2-4, 2016. Below are just two of the many "modules" on the site that include references to cited research papers and other resources you can provide to your customers. We encourage you to visit the site to access many tools designed for you to use with your customers, including fun videos, and a carbon calculator that allows you to type in a number of pallets recycled and it produces a number for the "Equivalent number of cars taken off the road." Explore naturespackaging.org, tweet @naturespak, and help us celebrate the environmental credentials of wood packaging. Nor th American Forests are Sustainable Wood is a natural and renewable resource. Wood harvested from North American forests follows some of the world's best forest management practices which have for decades provided net forest growth. Net forest growth refers to land which is reforested once the forests have been harvested; preventing a loss of forest acreage with the result being actual forest cover in North America is increasing. Forest covers approximately 751 million acres, roughly a third Choose the Sustainable Way 1 The 2003 and 2010 National Report on Sustainable Forests prepared by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to fulfill the United States' commitments to the Montréal Process Working Group on Criteria and Indicators for the Conservation and Sustainable Management of Temperate and Boreal Forests. The RPA Assessment, a nationwide forest inventory man- dated under US federal law to be undertaken every 10 years. An Assessment of Lawful Harvesting and Sustainability of US Hardwood Exports. Seneca Creek Associates LLC, 2008 2 The State of Canada's Forests Annual Report 2014 Natural Resources Canada. 3 A Guide to World Resources 2000-2001: People and Ecosystems: The fraying web of life, Data table; United Nations Development Program, United Nations Environment Program, World Bank and World Resources, September 2000. An independent peer-reviewed study commissioned by AHEC in 2008 from Seneca Creek Associates LLC entitled "An Assessment of Lawful Harvesting and Sustainability of US Hardwood Exports." 4 Deforestation Canada, What are the Facts, Natural Resources Canada; State of the World's Forests 2011, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UNFAO, Canada's rate of defor- estation is [virtually] zero and has been for over two decades (United Nations FAO Global Forest Resources report issued in 2010). T