Consumers Must Fight British Columbia's Temperate Rainforest Disinformation
7/15/96
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/* Written 10:35 AM Jul 15, 1996 by ranmedia@ran.org in igc:rainfor.genera */
/* ---------- "B.C. P.R. disinformation" ---------- */
Consumers must fight British Columbia's P.R. disinformation
by William A. Newsom
The world's temperate rainforests are being destroyed at a cataclysmic
rate, and Pacific Bell is helping. The best of what's left of these
magnificent rainforests are in British Columbia and they are being
clearcut to feed California's voracious appetite for wood and paper. With
hundred-acre clearcuts the norm, B.C. is fast-tracking the extinction of
its ancient temperate rainforests cannot be replaced. Few examples better demonstrate this ecological
short-sightedness than the millions of disposable phone books Pacific Bell
prints each year, one-third of the paper content coming B.C. rainforest
wood pulp.
It is hard to believe that anyone would try to defend the use of primary
rainforest pulp to make disposable phonebooks, but Pacific Bell does just
that. Their P.R. people have closed ranks with the world's largest logging
companies and their spineless political hacks.
The former premier of British Columbia, Michael Harcourt, recently
editorialized in the San Francisco Chronicle on behalf of Pacific Bell
(op-ed 7/27/96) stating that Greenpeace and Rainforest Action Network were
misleading Americans in their campaign to reform Pacific Bell's U.S. companies' Harcourt complained, unfairly "impl[ied] that Canada's western-most
province is a socially-backward jurisdiction, where giant corporations
hold sway... and make the provincial government their compliant lackey.y
This depiction, however, is not far off the mark. I say this both as a
lover of the outdoors who has spent extensive time exploring British
Columbia, and as a shareholder in Pacific Bell who has diligently
investigated this issue.
While B.C.'s government is hardly helpless, it certainly spends
considerable effort protecting the interests of a few large corporations.
When political leaders like Mike Harcourt are running around the world
defending logging companies, its a safe bet that something pretty dirty is
going on. Over 90% of British Columbia is public land, but the government
has ceded control of a quarter of the province's richest rainforests to
three corporations Products. These companies clearcut the millennia-old trees from this
public land, and keep the profits for their troubles!
Pacific Bell buys its directory paper from logging giant MacMillan
Bloedel. Except for the percentage of recycled paper Pacific Bell must
buy as mandated by state laws, the pulp is coming from clearcut primary
rainforests.
It is no wonder that ex-Premier Mike Harcourt is touchy about being a
logging industry lackey. The University of British Columbia, where
Harcourt is now an adjunct professor, is presided over by Dr. D.W.
Strangway MacBlo, as the company is commonly known, is not only Pacific Bell's
supplier, it is also the timber giant converting the rainforests of B.C.'s
magnificent Clayoquot Sound into consumables for the U.S. market. In early
1993, just prior to making the decision to allow three-quarters of
Clayoquot's majestic cedars and hemlocks to be clearcut, Mr. Harcourt's
New Democratic Party conveniently purchased over $50 million of MacBlo
stock (which has since then been sold). All this is nothing unusual for
the New Democratic Party loggers' union.
Pacific Bell knows all this, but Pacific Bell does not care about the
environment. They are quick to hide behind MacBlo's public relations
smokescreen instead of acting according to conscience. They are
destroying B.C.'s rainforests as if they were holding the chainsaws themselves.
Use implies responsibility. Since it is our consumption here in California
and the rest of the U.S. that is fueling the liquidation of B.C.'s
rainforests, large consumers such as Pacific Bell Directories, USA Today,
and the home-building industry need to develop alternative materials to
print and build with right now. Perhaps if Pacific Bell had spent $50
million exploring the use of increased recycled and non-tree fibers to
make phone books instead of buying the title sponsorship of the Giant's
new ballpark, they would have received an equal level of publicity while
making a truly positive contribution to our planet.
Until now, Pacific Bell has held its customers hostage. Now deregulation
is going to change that. Pacific Bell is going to learn a lesson that the
tuna industry learned the hard way: the customer is always right. Whether
it's dolphins or rainforests, given a choice, Americans will not do
business with companies that destroy the environment.
I urge everyone to speak out against the use of clearcut ancient
rainforest products, as have seven California city and county
governments (including San Francisco, Oakland, and Marin County),
California's two largest recycling organizations, the leading
environmental organizations in the U.S., and tens of thousands of
individual Americans. If we do not, history will be justifiably unkind to
us.
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San Francisco writer William A. Newsom, a retired associate justice for
the State Court of Appeal, is administrator of the Gordon Getty Family
Trust.