Consuming maple syrup helps Canadian forests
A productive maple is not cut down
A teaspoon in coffee, a drizzle over pancakes. Taken alone, it’s a small gesture. But behind it is a chain that reaches a forest on the other side of the ocean.
Quebec’s maple groves are protected by provincial laws. And they are protected because they produce: the connection comes from there, not from a slogan.
Protected by Québec law
$2.1 billion in estimated value
Groupe AGÉCO and Quebec Federation Data
Two Fates, Same Tree
In Canada a maple tree can be on two sides of the same line. Which side it's on depends on only one thing: whether it produces or not.
Discontinued
Fifty-three million Canadian maple trees have not yet entered production. No law protects them: they can be cut down at any time, and no one would even notice.
- Legal protection
- Recognized value
In production
A maple tree from which sap is harvested enters a maple grove, and from that moment falls under the protection of Quebec law. It remains standing because standing, it yields more than it would lying down.
- Legal protection
- Recognized value
- Carbon offset
What is the value of standing timber
Groupe AGÉCO and the Quebec Federation of Maple Syrup Producers tried to put a value on protected maple groves, which resulted in the following.
$2.1 billion
The estimated value of Canadian maple forests protected by law.
770.000
The vehicles whose carbon emissions those forests offset each year. A third of the cars on the road in New York.
53 million
The maples remained on the other side of the line. For now.
As a tree changes sides
The connection between what you buy and what remains standing is not rhetorical. It goes through three concrete steps.
The question
The more syrup the market absorbs, the more worthwhile it becomes to put maple trees into production that are not currently.
Go-live
The tree enters a sugar maple grove and begins to produce sap. From that moment on, it has a value it didn't have before.
Two trees each
According to the Federation, every person who switches from traditional sweeteners to maple syrup brings two new maple trees across the line.
The data comes from a study by Groupe AGÉCO conducted with the Quebec Federation of Maple Syrup Producers. The estimate of two trees per person comes from the Federation itself: we report it as such.
Fifty-three million trees
This forest has no pipes. Nobody harvests anything from it, so no law registers it and no law defends it. This isn't a catastrophic prediction: this is how things are today for fifty-three million Canadian maple trees.
What you can do. Little, on your own. But production follows consumption and protection follows production: so far, this is the mechanism that has kept those forests standing.
Start your journey into a world of goodness now
Pure Maple Syrup – Gold, Delicate Taste - 189ml bottle
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Pure Maple Syrup – Amber – 189ml Bottle
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Pure Maple Syrup – Dark - 189ml Bottle
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