It is believed by scholars early Chinese knowledge or art was inscribed on hemp paper which is much more longlasting and durable than the paper of today. This is believed to be a factor as to why their knowledge and science was vastly superior to the west, who discovered how to make hemp paper 1400 years after the Chinese. The longlasting paper enabled knowledge to be passed on, built upon, investigated, refined, challenged and changed generation after generation.
What Happened?
Quite simply, in most part of the world cannabis became illegal to cultivate. However there are other reasons which helped to end hemp's position in the paper making industry. The main reason was the strength of the wood-pulp mills. These powerful lobbies, especially in Australia, had large amounts of forests already at their disposal and so did not need to cultivate anything- nature and time had done that already!
Mechanical hemp fibre stripping machines and machines designed to conserve hemp's high cellulose pulp became widely avaliable and affordable in the mid 1930s. But by this time opposition towards cannabis had already become widespread. Compounding this, the wood mills in Australia had become powerful groups and convinced the general public, who were being fed much misinformation about marijuana, hemp and cannabis (the same plant), that they offered a viable and suitable(for the time being anyway!) alternative.
Today only 41 million hectares, or 5.3 %, of Australia's total land area is classified as forest. This percentage is continually being reduced as a result of logging for the lucrative woodchip industry. It takes an average of 13 trees to make a ton of paper. In Australia the average annual consumption of paper and paper related products is 165kg. This equals roughly 30 million trees. On top of this Australia is exporting around 60 million trees as woodchips, annually. A possble economic and ecological substitute to this industry could be hemp plantations specially geared to pulp production. One acre of hemp can produce the same amount of paper as the destruction of four acres of forest. Thus hemp yeilds per hectare far outweigh those of old growth forests.
Also hemp paper has the advantage of being stronger than wood pulp paper, as well as having greater folding endurance. Hemp cardboard and paper bags will last longer and thus have more use than similar products produced from wood pulp or even plastic.
Forest plantations, especially in Australia, face a significant risk of being destroyed by fire. However, hemp is not subject to wholesale destructioon by bush fire.
Another factor which threatens pine plantations (a major source of pulp for paper) is the depletion of the ozone layer. Recent studies have indicated the depletion of the ozone layer is threatening to reduce the world pine production by up to 30%. However hemp not only resists the damage caused by increased ultra violet radiation, but it actually flourishes in it. The increase in ultra violet radiation causes the plant to produce more glandular oils and this increases the weight of the plant.
Dr Francis Campbell stated in 1845 the loamy soils of river flats from the Hunter region to Grafton provide ideal conditions for growing hemp. These regions are presently devoted to cattle grazing, and like much of agricultural Australian land is suffering form infestation of noxious weeds and great soil erosion. Two or three seasons of hemp cultivation can naturally clear a field of weeds due to the dense shock of leaves produced while the deep tap roots aerate and help stablise the soil.
Production
During both the cultivation and the processing, hemp requires far fewer chemicals than wood pulp.
If hemp was to replace wood pulp in the paper industry than the processing chemicals that are finding their way into our river systems would be reduced by 60 to 80%. The problem of highly toxic chemicals contaiminating our environment could be avoided in the hemp paper making process. This process does not require chlorine bleaches which the present process involving wood pulp does.
Modern Eucalypt plantations can approach the yeild of hemp. However to do so they must be heavily fertilized and heavily irrigated. Hemp does not generally need fertilizer and only needs irrigation, if at all, for the first 6 weeks of growth.
Also plantations tie up the land for 15 to 20 years. Throughout this time large changes in employment requirements occur. Hemp is an annual plant and therefore would be sown, grown and harvested regularly providing stable employment.
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