Rainforest Action Network
Hello RAN friends, allies, and supporters!
I'm writing with terrific news for the world's old growth forests. Boise
Cascade, one-time "Dinosaur of the Logging Industry," today announced
its
commitment to eliminate logging and purchasing of wood and paper products
from endangered forests. A feature story in today's Wall St. Journal and a
congratulatory ad in today's New York Times are attached.
In short, Boise is becoming the largest American forest products company to
agree to not log, procure, nor sell wood and paper from endangered and old
growth forests. Boise also is committing to track all products within its
supply chain globally to the mill of origin or beyond, and is committing to
plant or support the natural reforestation of native species and minimize
the planting of exotic species to avoid converting native forests to
plantations. Boise is initiating a pilot project to pursue FSC
certification, and will withdraw its name from the contentious Roadless
lawsuit. None of this would have been possible without your support. Thank
you.
Three years ago, Boise was the largest logger on U.S. public lands, led the
charge as lead plaintiff in a lawsuit to overturn the U.S. Roadless Policy,
had plans to build the world's largest chip mill amidst native forests in
Chile, and was one of the largest distributors of wood products from
endangered forests in the world. In the course of the campaign, Boise wrote
letters to many of RAN's funders (calling us anti-capitalists and
anti-American), and conspired in an unsuccessful attempt to have RAN's tax
status revoked. Today, Boise is reversing nearly all of these practices, and
is beginning a U-turn with a precedent-setting policy.
In a time of scant positive environmental news, this should give us all
hope. It's an inspiring reminder that grassroots activism can prevail over
even the most intransigent corporations, and that while the Bush
administration is encouraging more commercial logging on public lands and
calling it a "healthy forest initiative," activists are showing what
a real
initiative for healthy forests looks like.
Boise is proving that the era of predatory logging of the world's most
endangered forests may soon be over. With Home Depot, Kinko's, Staples, and
over 400 companies committed to stop buying and selling old growth and
endangered forests, together we can help create true accountability in the
marketplace.
The attached materials detail this groundbreaking agreement - for more
information go to www.ran.org.
Thank you again for your support and a special thanks to our campaign
partners at American Lands, Sierra Student Coalition, Student Environmental
Action Coalition, Free the Planet, Global Response and the countless other
activists and organizations and supporters for a great campaign.
The next question: how long before the rest of the logging industry - and
the Bush Administration - catch up?
For the forests
Mike
Attached
1) Today's Wall St. Journal article
2) Today's congratulatory ad in the NY Times
3) RAN's letter to the "Dirty Dozen" - Boise's largest competitors
-
challenging them to meet or beat Boise's policy.
<<WSJ Boise Turns Green.doc>> <<RANBoiseNYTAd.pdf>>
<<RAN-loggers-letter.doc>>
******************************
Michael Brune
Executive Director
Rainforest Action Network
221 Pine St., Suite 500
San Francisco, CA 94104
415-398-4404 x 311
www.ran.org
To make a gift to RAN click on http://www.ran.org/give/