After Buying MacBlo, Weyerhaeuser Won't Commit on Clear-Cutting
6/28/99
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: After Buying MacBlo, Weyerhaeuser Won't Commit on Clear-
Cutting
Source: Portland Business Journal
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: June 28, 1999
Byline: Gina Binole
It's uncertain whether Weyerhaeuser Co. will continue MacMillan Bloedel
Ltd.'s plans to phase out clear-cutting by 2003. But environmental
groups already are readying for protests and demonstrations in Canada
and the United States should Weyerhaeuser fail to honor MacBlo's logging
commitments.
Weyerhaeuser, of Federal Way, Wash., announced earlier this week it
would acquire MacBlo, Canada's largest timber company for $3.01 billion.
The merger would expand Weyer-haeuser's Canadian timberlands as well as
its U.S. holdings to include Southern forests, wood processing plants
and saw mills.
While industry analysts are generally positive about the purchase, some
groups, including Rainforest Action Network of San Francisco, are wary.
Weyerhaeuser still believes clear-cutting is an important and necessary
method of forestry. On the other hand, MacBlo is one year into a five-
year, phase-out plan for clear-cutting.
"We certainly hope and expect Weyerhaeuser will continue with MacMillan
Bloedel's efforts," said Mark Westlund, a RAN spokesman. "This gives
them a chance to be a leader in progressive forestry and to bring an end
to old-growth logging," Westlund continued. "If for some reason
Weyerhaeuser is to back out, they will be on the receiving end of
intense demonstrations and protests the likes of which haven't been seen
in decades."
Bruce Amundson, a Weyerhaeuser spokesman, said the issue of no clear-
cutting is one the company's forestry experts have yet to explore.
"We're anxious to learn more about it," he said. But at this point, he
could not say whether his company would embrace MacBlo's forestry
tactics. He also pointed out that in the past few years, Weyerhaeuser
has reduced the size of its clear-cuts and initiated several
conservation initiatives.
But in the eyes of Greenpeace and other environmental groups, such
efforts fall far short of what MacBlo has done.
Dennis Fitzgerald, manager of forest policy and communications for the
Vancouver, B.C.-based MacMillan Bloedel said the company decided last
June to stop bickering with environmental groups. They've even saved
money in the last 12 months.
"We gave ourselves a target of 20 percent (phase out) a year, and we did
a little bit better than 25 percent," Fitzgerald said. "We've been
pleasantly surprised by our ability to make the change."
Initially, the company, which harvests about 5 million cubic meters a
year, estimated it would cost an extra $4 a cubic meter, roughly $20
million to $25 million in added costs.
That has not happened. Overall costs have decreased, he said, although
that can also be attributed to management efforts to cut spending
elsewhere.
"If there have been additional costs so far, they've been masked by
other stuff," he said. "That's the good news."
Last week, MacMillan Bloedel took its environmental commitment even
further by entering into a memorandum of understanding with
environmental organizations and Canadian Indian tribes not to log in
pristine forest areas within the company's British Columbia holdings.