Swiss packaging company SIG, in collaboration with World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)-Switzerland and WWF-Thailand, has initiated a forest conservation project aimed at protecting and enhancing forest landscapes in Thailand.
The project focuses on improving forest management and connectivity across three key landscapes, Dawna Tenasserim, Lower Songkhram, and Dong Phayayen, covering a total of 60,000ha.
Businesses such as SIG rely on wood fibres from forests to produce paperboard for their carton packs. The company has been sourcing Forest Stewardship Council-certified paperboard since 2021, benefiting both biodiversity and local communities.
This project is part of SIG's broader commitment to positively impact an additional 650,000ha of forest by 2030.
The latest forest landscape project under WWF's Forests Forward programme follows two earlier initiatives in Mexico and Malaysia.
WWF-Thailand conservation director Michael Roy said: “Our partnership with SIG is giving WWF-Thailand the opportunity to scale up our on-the-ground protection and restoration work in three of Thailand’s globally significant forest landscapes.
“This support will allow us to directly restore degraded forests and work with government and communities to designate new protected and conserved areas, reconnecting our forests and encouraging natural movement of iconic species, including tigers, gaur, and elephants.”
Thailand's forests, situated within the Indo-Burma biodiversity hotspot, are among the most biologically diverse regions globally, providing a habitat for various species, including endangered clouded leopards, tigers, Asian elephants, and orchids. However, these critical ecosystems face threats from deforestation and habitat fragmentation.
The new conservation initiative in Thailand has set three primary objectives, securing forest corridors for ecosystem connectivity, strengthening conservation lands, and engaging communities in conservation efforts while providing them with alternative livelihoods.
In October this year, CEOs from 22 companies, including SIG, as part of the Business Coalition for a Global Plastics Treaty, issued an open letter urging governments to adopt an actionable treaty to combat plastic pollution.
