harry potter

I get a lot of book tokens for Christmas, birthdays and the like - I read a lot so it's an easy option for a hard-to-buy-for kind of guy. But they have a habit of lurking in my wallet for months at a time, as I've got into the habit of buying second hand books. Buy books cheaply from charity shops and return them when I'm done - it's the three Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle) all rolled into one, with a dose of charitable intentions thrown in for good measure.

The only flaw in my cunning plan is that pre-loved books don't just spontaneously appear in branches of Oxfam, they begin life as a tree in a forest somewhere. Large amounts of fresh virgin paper are required to keep the publishing industry running, and if the production of that paper is causing the destruction of large and ancient forests, those book tokens are going to remain where they are indefinitely.

The boy with the lightning bolt on his forehead is back. And this time, Harry's not only saving Muggles and Hogwarts from the evil powers of Voldemort, he's also working a little magic for the world's ancient forests.

JK Rowling's UK publisher Bloomsbury has just confirmed to Greenpeace that 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince' will be printed on a part ancient forest friendly paper. This will be the first best selling book to be printed on such a paper in the UK.

Hedwig the owl visited JK Rowling's UK publisher Bloomsbury today on behalf of the Greenpeace Book Campaign. He asked them to print Harry's latest adventure, 'Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince', which is due out this summer, on ancient forest friendly paper.

By taking such a step Bloomsbury would be helping to protect some of the world's last ancient forests and the muggle creatures that depend on them.

Raincoast Books, the Canadian co-publisher of the Harry Potter (in partnership with Bloomsbury), worked a little of its own magic for biodiversity and the world's forests by printing the Canadian edition of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on ancient forest friendly paper in 2003.

The approximately one million copies of the Canadian edition are the only ones in the world to be printed on 100 percent post-consumer recycled paper. The initiative won praise from the author, J.K. Rowling, and a special message for Canadian readers:

When the Markets Initiative started, Canada's publishing houses were largely sourcing virgin wood pulp from Canadian forests, with a high percentage from ancient forests. No publishers were consistently printing on recycled paper, no printers stocked ancient forest friendly (recycled/FSC certified) papers, and no such paper was being produced as a standard book sheet.