# How many trees were felled for the latest Harry Potter book?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-trees-were-felled-for-the-latest-harry-potter-book/185720
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [July 2, 2003, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-trees-were-felled-for-the-latest-harry-potter-book/185720 "2003-07-02T04:47:53Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2003, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-trees-were-felled-for-the-latest-harry-potter-book/185720/1 "2003-07-02T04:47:53Z")
In the back of **Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix** there is a note:
> [@](#):
>
> No Old growth forests were used to create paper for this book.
The first day of sales was five million. ([NYT](http://www.nytimes.com/indexes/2003/06/21/books/authors/index.html) )
And it got me wondering, just how many trees (whatever kind were used) were cut down to fulfill such a behemoth order.
Anyone care to hazard a guess?
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### Author:  [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2003, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-trees-were-felled-for-the-latest-harry-potter-book/185720/2 "2003-07-02T05:02:03Z")
Hmm… My (Australian) version says:
> [@](#):
>
> All paper used by Bloomsbury Publishing including that in this book, is natural, recyclable product made from wood grown in sustainable, well-managed forests. The manufacturing process conforms to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.
Nothing about old growth. Maybe that implies that the Australian versions WERE printed with old growth trees…
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### Author:  [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2003, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-trees-were-felled-for-the-latest-harry-potter-book/185720/3 "2003-07-02T05:09:57Z")
Oooooooooooooh.
Velly interesting.
Some kind of conspiracy to denude one country of their trees whilst saving another.
Any other furren dopers out there want to check their books to see what the thing says?
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### Author:  [@Aro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aro)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2003, 9:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-trees-were-felled-for-the-latest-harry-potter-book/185720/4 "2003-07-02T09:39:03Z")
Not sure of the veracity of this claim, but [this cite](http://www.harrypotterfacts.com/Forest_Friendly-fact-sheet.htm) says (in Canada at least) :
[quote]
By printing Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on Ancient-Forest Friendly paper Raincoast is making the following ecological savings:
[ul]
[li]29,640 trees (a forest area equivalent to 95 times the size of the Skydome in Toronto or equivalent to a forest area just larger than Vancouver’s Stanley Park) [/li][li]47,007,044 litres of water (enough water to fill 31 Olympic-sized swimming pools) [/li][li]633,557 kilograms of solid waste (equivalent to the weight of 155 average female elephants) [/li][li]20,248 BTUs of electricity (enough electricity to power the average North American home for 195 years) [/li][li]1,215,443 kilograms of greenhouse gases (equal to 3.9 million kilometers travelled by a car with average fuel efficiency) [/li][li]8486.4 kilograms of air emissions[/ul][/li][/quote]
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### Author:  [@Popup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Popup)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2003, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-trees-were-felled-for-the-latest-harry-potter-book/185720/5 "2003-07-02T09:54:38Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Shalmanese \*
> \*\*Hmm… My (Australian) version says:
>
> > [@](#):
> >
> > All paper used by Bloomsbury Publishing including that in this book, is natural, recyclable product made from wood grown in sustainable, well-managed forests. The manufacturing process conforms to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.
>
> \*\*
The UK version says something very similar. (I haven’t got it right here, but I sounds like it could be the same text.)
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### Author:  [@refusal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/refusal)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2003, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-trees-were-felled-for-the-latest-harry-potter-book/185720/6 "2003-07-02T10:04:15Z")
[Conservatree](http://www.conservatree.com/learn/Enviro_Issues/TreeStats.shtml) say that it takes 24 trees, each 40 foot high and 6-8 inches diameter to make one ton of decent-quality printing paper. [This news story](http://www.pressdemocrat.com/local/news/21potter_a1.html) says the new Harry Potter weighs 2.8 pounds.
Therefore, you get about 800 to the ton. 5 million books works out as 6250 tons, or 150,000 trees.
However, this doesn’t take into account the cover, which may be made with a different tree content, or using recycled board. But a figure of at least 100,000 trees seems likely.
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### Author:  [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2003, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-trees-were-felled-for-the-latest-harry-potter-book/185720/7 "2003-07-02T11:46:06Z")
The quote from Aro actually appears in the book sold in Canada (which, BTW, is “only” 784 pages long). Since Raincoast printed nearly one million copies, it looks like 30,000 trees for each million copies, or 150,000 for five million as estimated by refusal seems to be just right.
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### Author:  [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2003, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-trees-were-felled-for-the-latest-harry-potter-book/185720/8 "2003-07-02T13:44:42Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Nothing about old growth. Maybe that implies that the Australian versions WERE printed with old growth trees…
What do you mean, **Shalmanese**? Read the quote. “All paper used by Bloomsbury Publishing including that in this book, is natural, recyclable product made from wood grown in sustainable, well-managed forests.” Sustainable, managed forests are not likely to be old-growth forests - they are basically “tree farms” for the paper industry.
It drives me nuts when people say that paper “uses up” forests. It makes no more sense than to say that “millions of acres of wheat are destroyed to make bread”. Let’s get this straight: _The trees would not be there in the first place if they were not planted to make paper._
There are plenty of things that threaten old-growth forests - clearing for agriculture, harvesting for timber etc, but paper-making is not significant.
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### Author:  [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2003, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-trees-were-felled-for-the-latest-harry-potter-book/185720/9 "2003-07-03T15:03:42Z")
Well, it seems odd that one version specificallt mentions old-growth while the other does not. You would think that if they DIDNT use old growth in both versions, it would be mentioned in both versions and not just one.
Or maybe the US version used materials which were not “sustainable and well managed” but just happened to be not old-growth.
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### Author:  [@McDeath\_the\_Mad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/McDeath_the_Mad)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2003, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-trees-were-felled-for-the-latest-harry-potter-book/185720/10 "2003-07-03T16:21:38Z")
The Canadian edition was printed entirley on recycled paper:
[http://www.catchthesnitch.com/news/51/](http://www.catchthesnitch.com/news/51/)
MtM