Mediterranean Cork Oak Forests at Stake in Wine Closure Battle

LONDON, UK, May 15, 2006 (ENS) – Every year over 15 billion cork stoppers are produced and sold to the wine industry, but the increasing popularity of plastic and screw top closures could spell the end for the cork oak forests of the western Mediterranean, an environmental group warns.

Issued on the eve of the International Wines and Spirits Fair that opens Tuesday in London, a new report by the global conservation organization WWF predicts that three-quarters of the western Mediterranean’s cork oak forests could be lost within 10 years.

The survival of these unique forests depends upon the market for cork wine closures, but the WWF report, "Cork Screwed?" says the trend away from cork stoppers could lead, in the worst case scenario, to synthetic and screw tops holding 95 percent of the wine closure market by 2015.

Cork oaks survive without the use of chemical herbicides, fertilizers or irrigation and is the only tree that regenerates after harvesting. (Photo courtesy Portuguese Cork Association)

Cork harvesting is an environmentally friendly process during which no trees are cut down. WWF says synthetic and screw top closures are more harmful to the environment because they use more energy in production and are oil-based products.

Cork stoppers, which are biodegradable and can be recycled into other products, represent almost 70 percent of the total cork market value. The cork forests support more than 100,000 people in the cork-producing countries of Portugal, Spain, Algeria, Morocco, Italy, Tunisia and France.

Because of the predicted decline in the cork stoppers market, up to two million hectares of cork oak forests, an area half the size of Switzerland, will be put at a heightened risk of desertification and forest fires.

The cork oak, which thrives in the hot, arid conditions of southern Portugal, helps protect the soil from desertification and cork oak forests are inhabited many species, including the wild boar and rare birds such as the black stork and the Egyptian mongoose.

Endangered species such as the Iberian lynx, Barbary deer and the Imperial Iberian eagle would be further put at risk of extinction, if natural corks are displaced by plastic and screwtops, the WWF report says.

Cork trees can live up to 500 years. Harvesters strip the thick bark, leaving the trees alive to produce more. By Portuguese law, the cork can be stripped every nine years, but it takes at least 40 years for the bark to become commercially viable and most cork farms are passed down from generation to generation.

But a warming climate and a changing economy are squeezing the cork industry.

In the rich cork oak habitat near Monchique in southern Portugal, farmers have been converting to fast growing species like eucalyptus that can be harvested more quickly and at greater profit.

The stripping of the outer bark of the cork oak, when done by professional loggers, does not harm the tree, because the first layer of reproduction cork merges with the developing virgin layer in the unstripped part of the tree. (Photo courtesy Portuguese Cork Association)

“It was tragic,” recalled Helder Aguas, president of the Algarve Forest Producers Association in southern Portugal. “It was the worst day of my life when I saw everything go up in smoke.” Aguas, one of the biggest landowners in the area, lost nearly all of his 320 hectares of land.

Aguas is staying, but many discouraged cork farmers are abandoning the cork oaks and leaving the region, rather start again.

Jorge Revez, head of the rural development organization ADPM, told WWF that desertification caused by intensive agricultural production and climate change, has demoralized local farmers.

To address the loss of the cork oak forests, last June 2005 WWF launched a project with Portugal’s reforestation commission and local landowners in the Algarve, aimed at preventing large-scale forest fires in the future.

Known as the Cansino project, it involves restoring burned areas and redesigning forest landscapes to make them more fire resistant. Patches of cork oak trees will be planted in key eucalyptus plantations as a barrier against fire. The project is viewed as a model for other degraded areas in Portugal.

But for the cork oak regeneration program to be successful, the wine industry has to buy corks.

Synthetic closures today represents about 20 percent of the global market for wine closures.

Some wineries like synthetic corks and screw caps because they avoid oxidation and crumbling corks. In addition, customers dread opening a bottle to the musty smell of cork taint, which affects an estimated two to 12 percent of wine worldwide. Even at relatively low levels, cork taint renders a wine undrinkable.

The synthetic corks are made from chemically inert polymers, or plastics. Nomacorc, one company exhibiting at the International Wines and Spirits Fair sold more than 1.2 billion synthetic closures 2005.

Wine tasting is serious business at the 2005 International Wines and Spirits Fair. (Photo courtesy London Wine Fair)

Screwtops are gaining in popularity as well, led by some of New Zealand's top winemakers who started the New Zealand Screwcap Wine Seal Initiative in 2001.

In November 2004, 250 delegates from around the world attended the First International Screwcap Symposium held in Marlborough, New Zealand, and met for further expansion at the 2005 London Wine Fair.

Michael Brajkovich, winemaker at Kumeu River Wines and chairman of the Initiative, says, "It must be recognized that the change to screwcap usage away from the more traditional closures is a controversial one. The wine industry is inherently conservative and traditional, and change does not come easily."

But, he said, "With screwcaps we now have zero taint, and zero leakage."

WWF is calling on the cork industry to continue to invest in the quality of cork stoppers and the wine industry to make cork the preferred closure option.

WWF is supporting efforts by the Portuguese cork sector, both oak cork forest owners and processors, in demonstrating the responsible management of cork oak forests through a Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification scheme.

In Portugal, 912 hectares of cork land in the Alentejo region are now FSC-certified, enabling cork manufacturers to supply the market with the first FSC cork products.

“This is a major step for biodiversity conservation and for the cork trade,” said Nora Berrahmouni, coordinator of WWF’s Cork Oak Landscapes Programme.

“Cork oak forests rank among the top biodiversity hotspots in the Mediterranean and in Europe. At the same time, they are the backbone of an entire economy," said Berrahmouni. "FSC certification will reinforce the already environmentally friendly characteristics of the cork economy, leading to new opportunities in cork markets.”

The world's biggest cork processor, Amorim, has agreed that for this summer’s harvest they will supply the market with FSC products from two of its factories in Portugal.

Alexandra Lauw, a quality control manager at Amorim’s Coruche factory, said, “We are convinced there is an increasing number of people who on popping open a bottle of champagne are keen to toast a way of life that is traditional, environmentally friendly, and economically viable."

After use as a stopper, Amorim says, the cork biodegrades without producing toxic residues or may be recycled into other products such as floor tiles, gaskets and sports equipment.