ACTION
ALERT
***********************************************
WORLDWIDE
FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
Stop
Buying Ancient Forest Destruction
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Forest
Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises
http://forests.org/
10/20/98
OVERVIEW
& COMMENTARY by EE
Global
Response has written a hard hitting action alert regarding Home
Depot's
purchase of ancient forest timbers from British Columbia,
Canada. This campaign holds great potential for stigmatizing
poorly
harvested
old-growth timbers-an important step in an eventual end
game to
protect, and/or benignly manage, all remaining ancient
forests. Please take the time to pen a letter, and
get others to do
so
also.
g.b.
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Title: GR Action #4/98 Stop Buying Ancient Forest Destruction /
British Columbia, Canada
Source: Global Response
<globresponse@igc.org>
Status: Distribute freely with credit given to
source
Date: September, 1998
September
1998
"It's now or never to protect
these areas because the best of
them
will be gone in a very few years... We probably don't know half
the
number of species that reside in the temperate rainforest and yet
we're
destroying them before we know what we're losing."
-- Dr. Bristol
Foster, Ecologist
British Columbia's mid-coast is a
breathtakingly beautiful and
largely
undisturbed tract of wilderness - one quarter of the world's
remaining
coastal temperate rainforests.
Tragically, almost every
intact
watershed on the B.C. coast is slated for road building or
clearcut
logging within the next 10 years.
In the steep and irregular landscape,
clearcutting results in
loss of
habitat for many species, erosion of valuable nutrients and
soil
from slopes, and irreparable damage to fish-bearing streams.
B.C.'s ancient rainforests are home to
70 percent of Canada's
species
diversity - but one in 10 species in the province is
endangered
or threatened with extinction. The B.C.
Ministry of
Environment
says the greatest threat to species survival is loss of
habitat
- and it's going very fast: one acre of
ancient forest is
clearcut
every 66 seconds. Over 90 percent of
logging in the province
is
clearcutting. (Source: B.C. Ministry of Forests)
Who can stop the destruction of this
magnificent rainforest?
1) The B.C. provincial government
could permanently protect
the
remaining intact valleys. Global Response youth members are making
banners
that will be presented to the B.C. government in October as
part of
this campaign;
2) the logging companies could follow
the example of logging
giant MacMillan
Bloedel and agree not to enter any pristine valleys;
3) lumber retailers in the US that
purchase wood and wood
products
from companies that are logging in ancient rainforests could
cancel
contracts with those companies. If
there's no market for wood
from
ancient forests, the cutting will stop.
Many of Europe's largest
companies
have already committed to stop buying ancient forest
destruction.
No major U.S. retailer has yet made this commitment.
For the health of our planet and
future generations, the few
remaining
ancient forests must be preserved. The
Coastal Rainforest
Coalition
(150 organizations including Greenpeace, Natural Resources
Defense
Council and Rainforest Action Network) asks Global Response
members
to urge The Home Depot to make a commitment to stop purchasing
ancient
forest products.
Home Depot is the largest
do-it-yourself lumber retailer in
the
world and the largest retailer of timber in the U.S. The company
projects
an image as a leader in social and environmental issues - its
leadership
is desperately needed now to stop the destruction of
ancient
forests.
REQUESTED
ACTION: Please write a polite letter to
Mr. Arthur Blank,
President
of The Home Depot.
ú Ask him
if Home Depot purchases wood or wood products from British
Columbia's
coastal rainforests.
ú Tell
him you, as a consumer, do not want to buy ancient forest
destruction.
ú Urge
him to lead the U.S. lumber retail industry in adopting a
formal
policy (with a timetable for its implementation) that prohibits
the
purchase or distribution of any wood products derived from ancient
forests
anywhere in the world.
ú
Request a reply.
- -
- - -
- - - -
BACKGROUND
INFO:
CONSEQUENCES
OF CLEARCUTTING - The primary effect of clearcutting is
the
loss of habitat. On the steep slopes of
B.C's coastal rainforest,
nutrient-rich
topsoil is quickly washed and blown off the clearcut
land.
The absence of soil hinders the return of the majestic western
red
cedar and sitka spruce. Some cedars are
more than 1,000 years
old,
and sitka spruce can be 300 feet tall.
Soil washes into streams,
destroying
salmon spawning grounds and depriving bears of salmon, an
important
food source.
First Nations and resource-based
communities are profoundly
affected
by declining salmon stocks.
Clearcutting also prevents local
communities
from developing ecologically and economically sustainable
activities
such as eco-tourism and sustainable forestry and fishing.
Ancient forests provide habitat for plants
and animals that have
evolved
over millions of years. Once destroyed,
they can never be
replaced.
SPIRIT
BEAR - One out of ten black bears in the coastal rainforests of
British
Colombia is born all-white. The Kitasoo
people say the
Creator
promised that this white bear would always exist to remind us
of the
time when glaciers covered the land.
Only 100 spirit bears
remain. They make their dens in old-growth
trees. At the current
rate of
logging, their entire rainforest habitat will be fragmented by
logging
roads or clearcuts in the next ten years.
THE
U.S. LUMBER MARKET - The United States imports over half of B.C.s
rainforest
products in the form of pulp, paper and lumber. Common
products
that Americans purchase - newsprint, phone books, framing
lumber,
plywood, and even toothpaste, cake mix and teddy bears --
contain
materials derived from B.C.'s ancient rainforests. U.S.
lumber
companies have destroyed 95 percent of the ancient forests in
the
lower 48 U.S. states.
CONSUMER
ACTION - Write or talk to your local
lumber/wood products
stores
about your commitment to prevent the destruction of ancient
forests. Urge them to contact the Coastal Rainforest
Coalition (CRC)
to find
out how they can learn where their wood products originate.
CRC
will provide a Model Purchasing Policy for them to consider. [see
CRC
address, below] REDUCE CONSUMPTION OF
PAPER AND WOOD PRODUCTS!
- -
- - -
- - -
- -
Please
write to:
Mr.
Arthur Blank, President
The
Home Depot, Inc.
2455
Paces Ferry Road
Atlanta,
GA 30339-4024
FAX: International code + 770/384-2337
- -
- - -
- - -
-
- -
This
Global Response Action was issued at the request of and with
information
provided by the Coastal Rainforest Coalition (150 member
organizations
including Greenpeace, Natural Resources Defense Council
and
Rainforest Action Network).
For
more information, see these websites: http://www.coalition4bc.org;
http://www.greenpeace.org; http://forests.org/
Ask
lumber retailers to contact:
Coastal
Rainforest Coalition
221Pine
Street, Suite 500
San
Francisco, CA 94104
415/398-4404;
Fax: 415/398-2732
crc@coalition4bc.org.
- -
- - -
- - -
-
GLOBAL
RESPONSE is an international letter-writing network of
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