Relentless Forest Activists Dog Home-Builder Convention

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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

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Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org

http://forests.org/ -- Forest Conservation Archives

http://forests.org/web/ -- Discuss Forest Conservation

1/18/00

OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY

Rainforest Action Network activists delivered the message, loud and

clear, to several thousand builders assembled in Dallas, that "it is

simply wrong to build homes from old growth wood." Contact RAN to get

involved in this exciting campaign.

g.b.

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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:

Title: RELENTLESS FOREST ACTIVISTS DOG HOME-BUILDER CONVENTION

DEMONSTRATIONS DELIVER CLEAR MESSAGE:

NO OLD GROWTH WOOD IN NEW HOMES!

Source: RAINFOREST ACTION NETWORK

Press contacts:

Michael Brune -- mbrune@ran.org

Mark Westlund -- ranmedia@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 18, 2000

DALLAS, Texas -- Relentless forest protection leaders from Rainforest

Action Network made sure that National Association of Homebuilders

conventioneers understood that it is simply wrong to build homes from

old growth wood.

Protest activities began during opening ceremonies, Friday January 14,

when activists inflated a giant balloon shaped like a chainsaw outside

during opening remarks by Newt Gingrich.

Over the weekend, climbers hung two giant banners each nearly 1000

square feet in size, one from the top of the Convention Center, the

other inside the meeting itself. The outside banner, hung under a

sign welcoming attendees to the convention, read: "There's No Place

Like Home for Rainforest Destruction: Stop Using Old Growth Wood."

The interior banner, placed above old growth purveyor Boise Cascade's

display booth, read: "No More Homes from Old Growth Wood."

"Building homes from old growth wood," RAN Old Growth Campaign

Director Michael Brune declares, "is as barbaric as killing elephants

for ivory. The home construction industry is the last major old growth

lumber user that has not addressed this issue; we hope they catch up

quickly and get out of old growth right away."

The indefatigable activists carried on protests well into the night,

every night, using a high-powered optical system to project massive

anti-old growth images on Dallas buildings.

If home builders do not comply with RAN demands, the organization is

prepared to launch a national grassroots campaign similar to that

waged against Home Depot. RAN has already developed a print

advertisement and billboard campaign targeting individual home

builders slated to run in Spring.

RAN's campaign to get Home Depot to stop selling old growth wood used

a wealth of techniques from the activist palate. RAN staged high-

profile demonstrations at company headquarters, including hanging a

giant banner there in October 1998 with the words: "Home Depot, Stop

Selling Old Growth Wood." RAN also worked with major institutional

shareholders, fought Home Depot expansion plans at local city council

meetings, coordinated a hard-hitting national ad campaign, and

organized demonstrations at over 500 Home Depot stores across the U.S.

and Canada.

Many leading U.S. corporations including 3M, Kinko's, IBM, Nike and

Levi-Strauss have also pledged to go old growth free. Europe's

largest home improvement retailer, B&Q, is now in the process of

phasing out old growth wood sales altogether.

Less than four per cent of the United State's original ancient forests

are still standing. Worldwide, logging and other causes of

deforestation have brought all but twenty percent to the brink of

extinction. In this day and age it is no longer appropriate to build

houses out of the world's last ancient trees, some as old as 2,000

years.

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