Subject: [permaculture] Mediterranean Cork Oak Forests at Stake in Wine Closure Battle
Date: Mon, 22 May 2006 12:50:32 -0500
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.