Biodiversity and wine

Cork stoppers do not pollute the environment (as opposite to plastic stoppers), but also their use save the Cork oak woodlands. These forests face a major threat: the growing use of plastic and metal substitutes for cork stoppers in wine bottles, cork's main market. If the economic value of cork oak forests is not maintained cork oaks will be cleared for other land uses.

Cork oak (Quercus suber) is a WWF priority species, because it is one of the most ecologically, economically and/or culturally important species.