Great follow up. I very much appreciate your desire to explore this subject in more depth. Yes, there is a lot of issues with FSC paper– for instance— one of the FSC board members owns a tree farm in Brazil, and pesticides are a great issue there.

One thing we looked into is our paper’s source— we talked to the mill in a Portland suburb that makes it, asking specifically that question: “Yes, we know its FSC certified, but where does it comes from?” We got the low down, from the producer— taking the whole thing one step further. Let me tell you, its been difficult to weight all these factors, because frankly, once a company hears, “recycled or FSC” they stop there, feeling that they’ve done their due diligence with regard to sustainability. But at Wend we didn’t want to stop at the molecule level, we got to the atom— but there still is another level to get to which isn’t as transparent: sub atomic. My best advice for anyone using a lot of paper is to start from a good certification, and then get in contact with the mill that produces it, and investigate their supply chains. There are, of course, more sustainable strains of FSC paper than others by the way its sourced. Ours comes from regional stashes that aren’t irrigated or use pesticides. Honestly, I’ve never heard of another print magazine doing as much diligence as we have— and its not me tooting my own horn here AT ALL. We really care about this stuff; we’re treehuggers personally, pretty hardcore activists in our spare time, and I spend a lot of time in the woods. I’ll drive a used car for the rest of my life, have holes in my jeans, etc. if it means that I can run my business more sustainably. There is no business to be done on a dead planet, and you’re a hypocrite if you own a magazine that publishes stories about the majesty of the wilderness on paper that comes from destroying it.

Thanks,
Stiv Wilson
Editor In Chief
Wend Magazine