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Paper, Schools and Development (From Emile KAHOUN, Lycée Yadéga)

Despite the pervasiveness of computers in some schools, in most of the world's classrooms the traditional basics of paper books and rules still rule. Adequate supplies of cheap paper are essential to education, the social activity most likely to boost the health and economic well-being of people living in the poorest countries. Yet the gap in per capita consumption of paper between industrialized and developing countries is the widest of all wood product categories, wit a typical person in a developed nation consuming 15 times more paper than one in a developing country. Future growth in per capita consumptions and in population may well widen this paper gap, with critical implications for education and economic development.
Paper can come from plants other tan trees, of course, and it often does. In fact, although most paper is made from trees, most paper consumed in countries comes from on-wood fibbers, from rice straw and bamboo […].
This is partly an economic response to growing forest scarcity in these countries. Yet tree-free paper crops in developing compete with food crops for scarce land, and tree-free paper mills found throughout Asia have caused severe air and water pollution there. For the moment, there is no substitute for tree-based paper that promises to resolve environmental and economic concerns about growing demand for this essential product.
Almost four-fifths of the world’s population live in countries that do not meet the minimum level of per capita paper consumption – 30 kilograms – that the United Nations Environment Program considers necessary to meet basic needs for literacy and communication. Low paper consumption is much more than a mere symptom of a nation’s poverty. It is an obstacle to is economic and social development, because paper facilitates the education and communication that development. When children cannot newspapers, books or even entire populations cannot afford books, magazines and newspapers; development is a distant dream even if those populations are literate to begin with.
Developing country paper consumption averaged just 14 kilograms per person during the first half of the 1990s. By contrast, per capita paper consumption in industrialized countries averaged over 150 kilograms during the same period. In the United States, this figure averaged nearly one-third of a metric ton per person.
Simply supplying the developing word’s current population with enough paper to meet basic needs for literacy and communication would require an additional 100 million metric tons of paper, or a 30 percent increase in current global production. Meeting this demand would require significant increases in raw and recycled material supply, processing capacity, and related use of water and chemicals. Present levels of paper production, however already create sere environmental problems in many countries. By 2050, meeting basic literacy and communication need will require between 235 and 340 million metric tons of paper, depending on the amount of future population growth. The point here is not that developing countries should discourage paper consumption, if anything the reverse. But their capacity to boost the universal availability of inexpensive paper will depend to a large degree on how well they conserve their trees, and on future rates of population growth.

Source : Forest Futures Population Action 1999, p. 63

A) Guided commentary ( 14 points )

1) Does the introduction of computers succeed in eliminating paper consumption in both industrial and developing countries, according to the text? (3 points)
2) What is done to reduce the production of paper fro trees and what are its consequences? 5 3 points)
3) Is there any correlation between paper consumption and development? Justify your answer (4 points)
4) There will be a great demand for paper consumption in the future. What measures could be taken by decision – makers to face this coming issue and how could local communities be involved in the process? (4 points)

B) Translation ( 6 points )

Translate into French from simply supplying the developing... to … on future rates of population growth.