Wisconsin: Group Questions Menards' Choice of Wood Products
1/17/00
*******************************
RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Group questions Menards' choice of wood products;
Environmentalists' claims that store uses endangered trees
denied by retailer
Source: The Associated Press
Status: Copyright 2000, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: January 17, 2000
EAU CLAIRE, Wis. -- The home improvement store chain Menards is being
questioned by a national environmental group, which says the company
sells wood from endangered forests.
``They're the largest company that's refused to change,'' said
Michael Brune, a campaign ddirector for the Rainfores Action Network.
The San Francisco-based group, which has 25,000 members, raised
similar complaints last year about the country's largest home
supplies retailer, Home Depot, and held protests in its stores. Home
Depot announced in August that it would phase out sales of such wood
by 2002.
But Eau Claire-based Menards, the country's third largest home
improvement store, disputes many of the environmental group's claims.
Most of Menards' lumber is native-growth white pine, company
spokeswoman Dawn Sands said. Red cedar, the use of which has been
questioned, can be harvested in a responsible manner, Sands said.
Because of Menards' size -- the company has 139 stores and had sales
of $4 billion in 1998 -- it takes time to identify all the types of
wood Menards uses, Sands said. But the company has given Brune a tour
of the Eau Claire facility and is willing to negotiate with
environmentalists, she said.
``It's an issue that does concern us, and we're doing the best we
can,'' Sands said.
However, the Rainforest Action Network insists that Menards' products
include ``old-growth'' wood, which comes from forests that have not
been significantly degraded by people. Menards sells red cedar from
old Canadian forests in its decking materials, sidings and shakes,
and uses wood from Asian rain forests for its plywood and doors,
Brune said.
The environmental group's message seems to be gaining supporters.
GreenSense, an environmental group at the University of Wisconsin-
Stout, recently heard about the network's concerns and launched a
campaign to urge Menards to give up old-growth wood.
Rainforest Action Network already has sponsored some scattered
protests against Menards, including one last fall in Des Moines,
Iowa, where 16 people were arrested. Any future campaign would
include print and outdoor advertising, civil disobedience and
demonstrations, a letter-writing campaign and possibly celebrity
involvement, Brune said.
Brune said last week that the group was waiting for Menards'
response.
``If we don't have at least an intention letter from Menards one
month from now, then they'll be the target of a public campaign the
likes of which they haven't seen,'' Brune said.