ACTION ALERT -- Boise Cascade's Flawed Business Practices
11/29/00
OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY
by Forests.org
Boise Cascade of the United States is indeed one of the World's worst destroyers of ancient old-growth forests - a corporate dinosaur completely out of touch with industry trends. They log and sell wood and paper products from many of the World's remaining old-growth forest wildernesses, threatening the existence of these cathedrals to evolutionary brilliance and ecosystem necessity. Join Rainforest Action Network in demanding that Boise Cascade start meeting the demands of consumers; and phase out logging and selling of all wood products from old growth forests, stop logging public lands in the United States, cease converting native forests to plantations and planting genetically modified trees, and adopt logging standards that meet or exceed those of the Forest Stewardship Council. Only forest industry companies that meet these demands will survive into the next decade-the rest will be shut down as a result of their own short- sightedness.
g.b.
RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Boise Cascade's Flawed Business Practices
Rainforest Action Network Action Alert, http://www.ran.org/
October 2000
Headquartered in Idaho, Boise Cascade is one of the country's top loggers and distributors of old growth forest products. Boise Cascade is logging and selling wood and paper products from the world's rarest and most endangered forests. For example, Boise Cascade is actively logging old growth forests in Idaho, throughout the Pacific Northwest, and in central Canada. Boise Cascade also sells wood products that have been ripped from the tropical rainforests of the Amazon and Southeast Asia, and serves as a prime distributor of wood from British Columbia's beautiful Great Bear Rainforest. Boise Cascade is increasingly out of step with modern public values and its business practices are indefensible in today's marketplace.
To catch up with public values and meet the new standards being demanded by customers, Boise Cascade will need to undertake a fundamental transformation of its business practices.
Rainforest Action Network is calling on Boise Cascade to:
Phase out logging and selling of all wood products from old growth forests.
Terminate all logging and selling of wood products from public lands in the United States.
Commit to no further conversion of native forests to plantations.
Cease development and planting of genetically modified trees.
Adopt logging standards that meet or exceed those of the Forest Stewardship Council.
Take Action for Our Forests
With more than $7 billion in annual sales, Boise Cascade is among the nation's largest and wealthiest forest products companies. Yet in order to survive as a business entity, the company must listen to its customers. You can make a difference by writing to Boise Cascade today and expressing your opposition to destructive and predatory logging.
Please Send an Email to Boise Cascade's Chief Executive Officer. You can do so easily from Rainforest Action Network's interactive action alert at:
http://www.ran.org/info_center/aa/boise.html
Or otherwise use the information below to send your own email to bcweb@bc.com .
Recipient: George Harad, CEO, Boise Cascade Corporation
Subject: Stop logging old growth wood!
George Harad
Chief Executive Officer
Boise Cascade Corporation
1111 W. Jefferson St.
Boise, ID 83728
Email: bcweb@bc.com
Dear Mr. Harad:
I am writing to express my deep disappointment regarding Boise Cascade's destructive logging. I understand that Boise Cascade is actively logging old growth forests in the U.S. and Canada, and is actually selling wood products that have been cut from our planet's most precious and rare forests in Brazil, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere. Our culture no longer slaughters elephants for their ivory tusks; it is equally unacceptable to cut down old growth forests for 2x4's and office paper in this day and age.
I urge your company to commit to eliminate logging and selling old growth wood products and to phase out logging on U.S. public lands. Until your company makes these commitments, I will not support any business that carries Boise Cascade wood and paper products.
For the forests,