this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2024
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Environment
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This confuses me a bit because I have a fading half-memory of some story from ages ago -- maybe a Nature episode? -- about how striping the cork from trees was highly stressful and the trees were going to be endangered if we didn't stop using so much cork. There was some hope that if consumers would accept screw-top wine bottles, perhaps the cork forests could recover, but as long as there was a strong market price for cork (which was more expensive than screw tops, but marked a wine as better quality), people would keep stripping trees.
I have no idea where I heard all that, but it was so long ago that I've surely confused the details. Regardless, I wonder what happened between then and now.
I did some quick searching and it sounds like cork farming is great, just hard to ramp up because it takes time for the trees to mature.
I'm sure stripping the bark doesn't exactly make the trees happy but they don't cut the trees down and that is a win. It's always hard to know what is truth and what is a sales pitch but cork generally gets high marks for sustainability.