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WORLDWIDE
FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
Lowe's
to Quit Selling Products from Endangered Forests
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Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org
http://forests.org/ -- Forest
Conservation Archives
http://forests.org/web/ -- Discuss Forest
Conservation
08/08/00
OVERVIEW
& COMMENTARY
I am
sending along another excellent article regarding Lowe's wood
purchasing
policy announcement. This one does a
good job of putting
the
announcement in the context of the struggle occurring over
certification
standards, and industry's resistance to independent
certification;
as well as the increased international consensus that
the
survival of ancient forests is threatened, requiring drastic
changes
in production and consumption of wood products.
g.b.
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RELAYED
TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Lowe's to quit selling products made with wood
from
endangered forests
Source: The Atlanta Journal and Constitution
Status: Copyright 2000, contact source for
permission to reprint
Date: August 8, 2000
By:
Patti Bond
Lowe's
plans to stop selling products from endangered forests,
starting
with an immediate ban on wood from areas of British Columbia,
Canada.
Lowe's,
the nation's second-largest home improvement retailer, is
expected
to announce today a wood purchasing policy that requires
suppliers
to prove their products come from well-managed forests.
"This
is not just about 2x4s and plywood. Even though a large majority
of our
(wood products) is in building materials, this policy has big
implications
for flooring, doors and anything else made from wood,"
said
Mark Kauffman, senior vice president of merchandising for Lowe's.
As
global logging practices face increasing scrutiny, Lowe's joins a
growing
group of wood buyers that wants to know where the wood is
coming
from. Trees from endangered or "old-growth" forests typically
end up
in stores in the form of windows, tool handles and cabinets,
for
example. Those products can be hard to track because they go
through
so many manufacturers before landing on shelves.
Lowe's
said it will give preference to suppliers that hire outside
auditors
to inspect forests for sustainable management practices. The
Wilkesboro,
North Carolina-based retailer wants its suppliers to use
harvesting
standards set by the Forest Stewardship Council, a non-
governmental
group in Mexico.
One
year ago, Atlanta-based Home Depot launched a similar plan, also
endorsing
the Forest Stewardship Council. With partners such as the
World
Wildlife Fund and Greenpeace, the council is trying to persuade
companies
and foresters around the world to agree on one set of
standards
for forest conservation and management.
Products
that are certified under this plan end up in stores with a
label
similar to the Good Housekeeping label.
But
certification is a highly complex endeavor. Although the world's
forests
have vanished at a dramatic rate in recent decades, little is
known
about the status of the remaining forests as a whole. Most
research
has been restricted to individual countries.
The
World Resources Institute, a Washington-based policy research
group,
is preparing a map of forests and the risks they face. Home
Depot,
Lowe's and other companies endorsing the Forest Stewardship
Council
will use that map to guide their purchasing policies.
So far,
only Canada and a few other countries have been mapped. In the
meantime,
the retailers are banning certain forests and wood products
that
are widely recognized as being at risk. Home Depot, for example,
said
last year it will phase out cedar, redwood and lauan, unless they
are
certified to comply with environmental standards.
Lowe's
declared an immediate ban on products from the Great Bear
Rainforest
of British Columbia. In the United States, Lowe's is
concentrating
on logging in the Pacific Northwest and the Southeast.
Regulations
and dwindling resources in the Northwest have shifted wood
demand
to the South in recent years. As the Southern forest industry
tries
to keep up with demand for wood products, pine plantations have
popped
up on former forest and farm land.
Environmentalists generally
frown
on tree farms because of the lack of ecological diversity.
Another
contentious issue in the move toward certification is
competing
schemes. Large forest products companies such as Georgia-
Pacific
and International Paper have endorsed the "Sustainable
Forestry
Initiative" designed by the American Forest and Paper
Association,
the industry's trade group.
The
guidelines cover issues such as water protection, clear-cutting,
wildlife
and ecosystem function, but opponents argue that industry's
standards
are not independent.
Home
Depot and Lowe's want suppliers to use the international
standards
set by the Forest Stewardship Council. The American Forest
and
Paper Association says its members are sticking to the industry
standards.
It's
unclear how that will play out with the retailers' new purchasing
policies,
but in the meantime Home Depot and Lowe's will have to keep
doing
business with the forest giants. For one thing, there isn't
enough
certified wood to feed demand.
Worldwide,
the Forest Stewardship Council has certified only 45
million
acres of forests, or an area about the size of Georgia and
half of
South Carolina. That's less than 1 percent of the world's
forests.
That's
expected to change with the recent push from retailers, though.
"We
get about certification," said Hank Cauley, executive director of
the
Forest Stewardship Council in the U.S. "Now, with Lowe's on board,
it's
going to be a domino effect."
###RELAYED
TEXT ENDS###
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