Menards Plans to Stop Selling Endangered Old Growth Wood Products

VICTORY

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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

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Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org

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2/2/00

OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY

The juggernaut rolls on, as Rainforest Action Network's focus upon

endangered old growth forest product consumption wins big again.

Menards, the third largest home improvement retailer in the United

States, announced plans to stop selling wood from endangered old

growth forests by 2003--joining The Home Depot, Wickes Lumber and

HomeBase. RAN waged a six-month campaign against the Wisconsin-based

Menards. Protesting consumption--particularly the sale--of

unsustainably produced ancient forest products is proving highly

successful. Another tool, in the toolkit to advocate for, and succeed

in, conserving and restoring the World's remaining forest wildlands.

g.b.

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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:

Title: MENARDS ANNOUNCES PLAN TO END SALES OF

ENDANGERED OLD GROWTH WOOD PRODUCTS

LATEST RETAILER TO PHASE OUT OF OLD GROWTH WOOD PUTS ADDED

PRESSURE ON LOGGING INDUSTRY

Source: Rainforest Action Netwwork

Jennifer Krill, jkrill@ran.org

Michael Brune, mbrune@ran.org

Rainforest Action Network

221 Pine Street #500

San Francisco, CA 94014

Telephone: 415/398-4404

fax: 415/398-2732

Website: http://www.ran.org

Date: January 28, 2000

"The end of old growth logging worldwide is one step closer now that

Menards has agreed to stop selling products made from these endangered

areas. When less than twenty percent of the world's original forests

are still standing, it's simply unethical to make these forests into

decking material and 2x4's."

- Michael Brune, Old Growth Campaign Director

Menards, the third largest home improvement retailer in the United

States, announced that the company plans to stop selling wood from

endangered old growth forests by 2003. Rainforest Action Network

(RAN) has waged a six-month long campaign against the Wisconsin-based

Menards, including a day of action against Menards stores in more than

a dozen cities in mid-October. Seventeen activists were arrested while

protesting at two Menards locations on October 26, 1999.

"Menards has joined a growing movement among powerful wood consumers

who recognize that selling old growth wood is unacceptable," declared

Rainforest Action Network (RAN) Old Growth Campaign Director Michael

Brune. "It's no longer a question of whether home improvement stores

will stop selling old growth wood, but when they will stop." Other

corporations who have phased out old growth forest products include:

The Home Depot, Wickes Lumber and HomeBase.

Brune adds: "Now that Menards and Home Depot are setting high

standards for wood products, it is high time for 84 Lumber, Payless

Cashways, Lanoga Corporation, and others to follow suit." The

nationwide coalition campaigning to save old growth forests includes

RAN, American Lands Alliance, the Student Environmental Action

Coalition, and Free the Planet.

Old growth forests are forests that have never been logged

commercially, and are the most endangered forest areas on the planet.

The giant trees in some old growth forests are over 2,000 years old.

The Amazon rainforest is tens of thousands of years old, large

portions of which have never been touched by commercial logging.

Around the world less than twenty percent of these original forests

survive, and less than four percent in the United States.

For a complete timeline of RAN's old growth campaign, visit

www.ran.org/ran_campaigns/old_growth/homedepot/timeline.html or call

for a hard copy.

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