The pulp and paper and palm oil industries are causing species extinction left, right, and center in one of the planet’s most important biological hotspots—Indonesia.

Giraffe via Flickr by Durotriges

Scientists have identified 25 “hotspots” of biological diversity, comprising a mere 1.4% of the earth’s surface, that contain an astounding 44% of vascular plants and 35% of vertebrates.  Hotspots are chosen based on their high species richness (number of species), high level of endemism (how many species occur nowhere else in the world), and high threat from human activity.  Why is it that a mere 1.4% of our earth’s surface, including hotspots rich in biodiversity like Indonesia, cannot be issued full protection at this time?

Our current solution to the incredible loss of species is protected areas, which are critical in an attempt to conserve our world’s biodiversity.  However, a recent scientific paper published in the Marine Ecology Progress Series by scientists Mora and Sale explores whether protected areas are enough to preserve a significant amount of biodiversity.  Their conclusion: definitely not.

The word “protection” is often used too loosely, as an incredible amount of land is only “protected” on paper.  A large part of the conservation battle lies in increasing and solidifying these protected areas, but this alone is not enough to save even a fraction of our world’s precious biota. Consider the case of rainforest-destroying industry giant Asia Pulp & Paper: APP protects one small plot of land here, and destroys an entire forest over there.  This is certainly not an effective way to protect areas deemed critical hotspots by leading scientists.

Image via Flickr by Arenamontanus

In theory, protected areas such as reserves and national parks are useful because they allow little to no resource extraction and minimize or prohibit development.  In practice, however, protected areas tell a different story.  Look at the Indonesia Moratorium, for example.  Sixty four million hectares of tropical forest are supposedly preserved, but the actual picture on the ground is very different as forests continue to be logged and peatlands drained.

It’s clear that protected areas are too small and too few.  We are currently protecting a very small percentage of the earth’s surface.  Since we do not have the resources or means to protect all of the land on our planet, scientists suggest we must first place priority on biodiversity hotspots, areas of utmost importance to global biodiversity.

Indonesia is a one such priority area, the protection of which scientists consider critical to not only preserve species, but also to mitigate severe climate change.   Indonesia contains some of the oldest and most valuable forest in the world, and its high species richness, endemism, and severe threat has recently led to its listing as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Danger.

Biodiversity Hotspots highlighted in red. Photo: Conservation International 2004

Another huge challenge with protected areas is poor enforcement.  National parks with which we are most familiar in the United States tend to have fairly strict protection, but those in developing nations, particularly Southeast Asia, are overwhelmingly what we might call “paper parks.”  Many areas issued protection are drawn on maps as reserves, but little to no enforcement exists.  Corruption and unmonitored practices such as illegal logging and extraction of wildlife for the pet trade occur all too frequently.

At the current rate of population expansion, protected areas will collapse in the near future as we struggle as a species to extract enough resources to survive and will be forced to expand onto protected lands.  Not only is curbing population growth paramount to conserving our resources, but lowering the egregious consumption rate per person, especially in developed nations such as the United States, is just as crucial.  We live in a society that measures success by growth, and growth is measured by an increase in the appetite of consumers.  Our current model is conducive to destroying the planet and its resources, and this must change in order for our planet to be sustained in its current form for future generations.  Just like any individual population, the earth itself has a carrying capacity, and we are nearing the tipping point after which many biota will no longer be able to survive, and neither will we.

None of these victories would have been achievable without you. It is our strength as a network, the power that comes from a passionate, committed, and ever-growing community of allies, that has made the amazing work of 2010 possible.

Check out what you did as part of the Rainforest Action Network in 2010…

	1. WALL STREET TURNS ITS BACK ON MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL COAL MINING Eight of Wall Street’s biggest banks committed to limit funding to mountaintop removal (MTR) coal mining projects. This was a major step in curbing the practice of blowing up America’s historic mountains and poisoning drinking water all for tiny seams of coal. This particular victory also landed RAN in a front-page article in The New York Times.
	2. EIGHT BOOK PUBLISHERS PROTECT INDONESIA’S RAINFORESTS Eight top children’s book publishers pledged to eliminate controversial Indonesian paper fiber from suppliers Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) and Asia Pacific Resources International Limited (APRIL) from their supply chains after RAN released our “Rainforest-Safe Kids’ Books” scorecard.
	3. GENERAL MILLS LEADS CALL FOR RESPONSIBLE PALM OIL RAN’s campaign against General Mills concluded in September 2010 when the company issued one of the strongest palm policies to date. General Mills has committed itself to getting all of its palm oil from responsible sources by 2015, supporting the call for a moratorium on peat forest conversion, requiring free prior and informed consent (FPIC) from impacted communities, and canceling contracts with controversial suppliers.
	4. CHEVRON MARKETING CAMPAIGN PUNK’D RAN “punk’d” Chevron, squashing the launch of the oil giant’s multimillion-dollar “We Agree” ad campaign. Ad Age called it one of the top 10 marketing fiascoes of the year, along with the flight attendant who inflated the slide on a JetBlue plane, the Apple employee who lost his Iphone4 prototype, and Christine O’Donnell.
	5. CARGILL GETS REAL ABOUT RAINFORESTS After being the target of three years of campaigning, Cargill, the world’s largest privately owned corporation, initiated a full supply chain assessment as well as certification audits of all its palm oil plantations. That’s one big step forward for this corporate giant!
	6. EPA TAKES A STAND ON MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL The EPA issued a landmark decision strengthening the guidelines it uses to approve MTR permits. This was the most significant administrative action yet taken in the US to address the issue. The EPA also announced its intent to veto the permit for the largest MTR mine site in West Virginia, Spruce Mine. This is the first time the EPA has flexed its veto power.
	7. GUNNS TIMBER COMPANY STOPS LOGGING OLD GROWTH Australian timber giant Gunns broke ranks with Tasmania’s forest industry, stating that it will pull out of native old-growth forest logging altogether.
	8. UNITED STATES ENDORSES UNDRIP With President Barack Obama’s announcement in December that the United States will “lend its support” to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), the U.S. has at last joined the global consensus on this critical human rights issue. Activists across the country have been working towards this for over 30 years. But, as many Indigenous leaders are saying, the U.S. supporting UNDRIP is something to celebrate, but much work remains to be done.
	9. RAINFOREST ACTION NETWORK TURNS 25 IN STYLE For the last 25 years, RAN has taken on corporate titans and secured real wins for the forests, climate and human rights. While our strategies have evolved and our staff has grown, we’ve always maintained the bold edge and nimble approach that makes us one of the savviest environmental action groups in the country.
	10. HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS TAKE ACTION TO HOLD CORPORATIONS ACCOUNTABLE Over the year, RAN inspired and mobilized literally hundreds of thousands of people to take action both online and offline. In addition to our incredible, ever-expanding activist and donor networks, RAN’s Facebook community tripled in 2010 and @RAN’s Twitter following grew by five times. This means tens of thousands of people are staying up-to-date and taking action daily to protect forests, communities and the climate.

From protests in front of Cargill, Chevron, and the EPA to online petitions and emails to bank executives and CEOs, RAN could not take on corporate giants and win without the growing support of our members and donors. Thank you so much.

We look forward to working with you to achieve even more victories in 2011!

On September 9th, at the Forest Industry Development Conference at Melbourne, Gunns announced that it will shift to a plantation-based business. Mr. L’Estrange, the new chief executive of Gunns, said “the vast support of the Australian population is with the environmental non-government organisations” and “native forest is not part of our future.” He continued, “we see that the conflict largely has to end. Our employees and the communities we operate in have been collateral damage to this process.”

This decision comes after years of campaigning by environmental organizations, and a directive earlier this year from the  Tasmanian government to Gunns Ltd. and Forestry Tasmania to seek certification under the Forest Stewardship Council.

Rainforest Action Network worked with international allies to pressure Gunns starting in 2005, just after Gunns brought 17 individuals and 3 organizations to court for publicly criticizing their destruction of Tasmania’s old growth forests. Japanese customers demanded the woodchips for FSC certified papers as RAN requested, and this demand, in combination with pressure from other international allies, helped shift the paradigm, leading to the latest announcements by Gunns Ltd.

While Gunns’ announcements are reason to celebrate, challenges still remain. There is evidence that Gunns is still engaged in old growth logging at this time. Support from people all across the world is still required to hold Gunns and the Australian government accountable for all the positive commitments that have been made in recent months for Tasmania’s forests.

Thanks to all of you who supported this campaign over the years and may it be a reminder of the power of people working together internationally to protect the world’s remaining ancient forests.

Posted on behalf of Toyo Kawakami, RAN Japan, Forest Campaigner

Copper Mesa, until last year, was the owner of a two mining concessions in the Intag. But the company ran into a strong, organized opposition from communities, local government and, eventually even the national government, which eventually stripped Copper Mesa of its concessions in the country.

Now the Toronto Stock Exchange, which had been sued by 3 Intag activists, has delisted Copper Mesa from the exchange.

DECOIN organizer Carlos Zorrilla wrote in an email to Intag community supporters:

“This is a key victory in Intag’s very long and exhausting battle against mining interests. So big in fact, that I still find it difficult to believe. After all, this has been a dream of ours and something we’ve been working on for almost six years.”

Copper Mesa’s shares lost about 60% of their value in the 48 hours after the TSX delisting.

Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining in West Virginia

1) The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) or a similar regime of reduced emissions projects from developing countries. The CDM is quite controversial, and exists under the Kyoto Protocol, which the U.S. did not sign onto, so these CDM-like projects would theoretically need to emerge from the new agreement now being negotiated in Copenhagen.

2) And the second source would be carbon credits from international forests. This regime is also being negotiated right now in Copenhagen, and its outcome will influence if not determine the future for forest protection in the coming decade. A strong REDD deal with good safeguards would mean forest protection and the rights of forest dependent people respected. A weak REDD deal without strong safeguards would allow the continued logging of the intact natural rainforests in countries like Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Brazil, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Bukit Tigapuluh, Sumatra. Credit: David Gilbert

America’s future appetite for forest carbon credits is just one reason why the U.S. is so keenly interested in REDD. Another, more urgent reason, comes from the allocation of pollution credits under the climate policy. In Waxman Markey, 5% of the total number of CO2 pollution credits will be auctioned to generate a fund for Supplemental Emissions Reductions from Reduced Deforestation. The hope is that this REDD fund would account for 10% the total emissions reduction goal of the United States.

It’s too early to tell how this legislation will play out in the Senate. The Democratic majority is still pushing for a climate bill, and it will not live up to the science-based standard of 40% or more emissions reduction below 1990 levels, in large part due to the entrenched lobbying by the fossil fuels industry. Ironically this may not be bad for non-U.S. forests which are seen by King Coal and Big Oil as a key ‘cost containment mechanism’. RAN supports the Supplemental Fund mechanism as a key means of protecting rainforests, and welcomes the U.S.’ role in the global effort to halt deforestation. But we cannot move forward without reducing our own emissions, and that’s why we oppose the offset mechanism, which uses forest offsets to let big coal and oil off the hook from making necessary emissions reductions.

Now in Copenhagen, we’re seeing the U.S. position vis a vis the Waxman Markey bill playing out. The U.S. opposes binding legal targets for emissions reductions – which we in essence do not have in the U.S. due to all of those offsets. But meanwhile, the U.S. is ready to go on REDD, due to the Supplemental Fund, the silver lining from an otherwise weak and compromised U.S. climate policy.

REDD is intended to help developing countries protect their remaining rainforests and reduce the 15-20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions caused by deforestation, forest degradation and peatland destruction.

Yet without key safeguards, REDD will fail to protect forests. Many countries hoping to benefit from REDD funding suffer from poor legal frameworks, high levels of corruption and illegality, and weak enforcement. Our allies at REDD Monitor summed up the situation with this graphic detailing rates of illegal logging in REDD beneficiary countries.

Key text that will prevent REDD from going the way of logging in terms of feeding corruption remains bracketed in the latest REDD text. [Brackets] means that some countries do not support this text, and from our conversations with negotiators it appears that the very same countries that stand to benefit from REDD funds are also working to undermine forest conservation and human rights in REDD. For example, here is the text that RAN and our allies in the Ecosystems Climate Alliance, working to include in the REDD negotiations in order for this forest deal to be a trustworthy alternative to logging and conversion:

• safeguards for transparent forest governance structures and support mechanisms {4(c)};
• safeguards for the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities {4(e)};
• safeguards on conservation of biological diversity and enhancement of ecosystem services {4(f)}.
• an objective for protecting intact natural forests.
• provisions to monitor compliance with these proposed safeguards should they be incorporated into the agreement;
• safeguards to prevent the conversion of natural forests to forest plantations.

Most worrisome is the likelihood that there is no legally-binding deal as an outcome of the Copenhagen meeting. If the parties still strike a REDD deal without a commitment from rich countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, REDD could end up as an offsetting mechanism rather than a key tool in reducing global emissions.

And without forest protection and enforcement of safeguards as its key priorities, REDD will threaten rather than preserve the world’s remaining natural forests.

Meanwhile, more and more companies and business groups (Apple, Exelon, PG&E) are dropping their membership in the Chamber and public opposition to the Chambers’ climate change denial is growing. The latest opposition is coming from the high tech sector, where the Silicon Valley Leadership Group and Silicon Valley Joint Venture are running an ad campaign against the Chamber for its opposition. And the Chamber is on the run, having been forced to backpedal on its claims to be the voice of the business community; last week the Chamber claimed to ‘represent’ 3 million businesses, but this week it quietly reduced that number to ‘300,000’ members. Investors are calling for companies that they own shares in to drop their membership in the Chamber, and local Chambers are formally distancing themselves from the US Chamber’s opposition to action on climate change.

As well they should. The Chamber of Commerce is behind the times: most companies have caught up with modern public values on climate change. For nearly ten years, the Carbon Disclosure Project has been surveying the leading global companies for their responses on climate change. In the most recent report issued earlier this year, 82% of the world’s largest 500 companies responded to the questionaire on their carbon emissions, 68% are reporting and tracking their emissions, and 51% have disclosed emissions reduction targets, all to report to investors representing over $55 trillion in capital investments. These companies are implementing global action plans for a carbon-constrained world, but the US Chamber of Commerce representing many if not most of these companies is heading in the opposite direction.

Here’s a note to Corporate America: every single company that claims to be taking climate change seriously yet continues to support the climate-change denying Chamber of Commerce, companies like Cargill, Microsoft (MSFT), Toyota (TM), FedEx (FDX) and Ford (F) – it’s time to come clean.

The US Chamber of Commerce is a national embarrassment, and corporations that continue to support this institution are standing in the way of progress in stopping climate change. It’s time for Chamber members to change or leave.

Too bad it’s such a disappointing day for climate in the US. Today Senators Boxer and Kerry released their first draft of the Senate climate bill, a companion to the House ACES bill passed this past June. It calls for the US to reduce emissions by 20% of 2005 levels by 2020. By comparison, island nations and the world’s least developed countries are calling for 45% emissions reduction from 1990 levels by 2020.

And it gets worse. The Boxer-Kerry draft bill subsidizes carbon capture and storage, a massive, scientifically uncertain boondoggle for coal fired electricity generators. The draft also repeats the most perverse problem in the House ACES bill by authorizing 2 billion tons of CO2 reductions to be achieved through offsets, instead of real emissions reductions.

Part of those offsets will come from a new, dangerous forest carbon market. The sellers of forest offsets will be tenure holders who are not required to operate with the free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous peoples. In fact, the forest offsets may not even guarantee the protection of the forest from future logging. The bill would create from scratch a new, risky
commodities market for carbon that could quickly become the largest market in the world, yet offers few specifics on how that market would be regulated.

To be fair, there are some safeguards for forests as well, requiring an increase in carbon stocks for forest offsets. And the ‘Supplemental Emissions Reduction Fund’ is also in the billp; this was the bright spot in the House ACES bill. If executed effectively, the fund could create a marketplace firewall between forest carbon and fossil carbon emissions reductions, and help forest countries to overcome their deep governance problems. The Boxer-Kerry draft bill also offers important incentives to plug in vehicles, renewable energy, and energy efficiency – tackling head on some the US’s lowest hanging fruit in addressing climate change.

But unfortunately, that won’t be enough to stop climate change. While the world is waiting for the US to step up to the plate, the US is still at home wrestling with its coal and oil demons.

Still, the Senate political scene is heavily influenced by coal and agriculture states and even these modest targets face a major uphill battle. Instead of reducing emissions, big oil, king coal and the senators they support are looking to carbon offsets as a solution. ACES offers 2 billion tons of emissions reductions to be achieved through offsets, a significant chunk of these are REDD offsets, also known as reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation from tropical rainforests.

Yes, REDD is promising for protecting forests. But if the Senate bill is as bad as the House ACES bill was, then REDD is poised to do more harm than good. In order to actually protect forests, the Senate bill’s forest provisions should:

1) Ensure that REDD measures are not a substitute for aggressive domestic emissions reductions.
2) Prioritize biodiversity and conservation, instead of logging and plantations. The House bill doesn’t even define the term ‘forest’, meaning that REDD offset credits may be encouraging converting rainforests into monocultural paper or oil palm plantations.
3) Protect and enforce Indigenous Peoples’ rights to free, prior and informed consent, in accordance with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
4) Create an international fund for REDD instead of tradeable forest carbon offsets.
5) Build a firewall to keep REDD carbon emission reductions out of fossil fuel emissions markets. There should be no offsets trading between forest and fossil carbon.
6) Strengthen weak forest governance in tropical countries with high rates of corruption and poor law enforcement.

If the Senate climate bill’s REDD provisions fail to include these safeguards, than the US climate bill will be doing more harm than good for tropical rainforests. You can take action on the Senate climate bill today; go to the RAN action center and tell your Senators to fight for strong REDD provisions in the climate bill today!

The Carbon Logic Problem Statement | Grist. by Ken Ward

An acclaimed mountaineer, a Baptist minister and a distinguished economist were stuck in a pit. The mountain climber said, “Stand back boys, I’ll have us out in a jiffy,” but the walls of the pit were loose shale and she couldn’t gain purchase. Then the minster raised his arms high and in a deep sonorous voice called for deliverance but after an hour of prayer he too admitted defeat. Finally, the economist stood, brushed dirt of a shabby Harris tweed jacket and said, “This is easy. First, assume a ladder.”

Environmentalists are trying to get out of a deep pit too, and in our push for Waxman-Markey we are acting like the mountaineer, minister and economist. We support ACES because, well, it’s there, and we are accustomed to moving doggedly forward for the best we can get. We also hope for deliverance via a gentle greening, where fossil fuels wither away and a sustainable future of vegetable gardens, strong local communities and good jobs blossoms. Finally, we have invested in what may be termed serial delusional assumptions.

• In the beginning, we thought that Enron and others aiming to cash in on carbon trading (as they did in the sulphur market) would out-muscle fossil fuel giants.
• We believed that techno-policy crafted by tuned-in elites could be quietly slipped into place, avoiding a flat-out messy and risky political slug-fest.
• We were convinced that major corporations like BP, GE and WAL*Mart were honest in their pledge to shift away from fossil fuels and had both the means and will to do so.
• We had faith that a solid majority of the American public, properly educated, would support effective climate action, so long as we did not offend sensibilities with Chicken Little predictions.
• Finally, we now assume we can fix broken policy somewhere down the line, so anything is better than nothing.

The basic question before us, “how bad does it have to be before we pull out?” ought to excite a passionate and principled debate, but we’ve traveled so far from environmentalist fundamentals that we can manage only flaccid, enervating exchanges. As our major organizations ready themselves to swallow nuclear power in a Boxer-engineered Senate compromise, the few points of eco-logic in this drab, grey landscape are lit by leaders and organizations mostly outside mainstream environmentalism. MoveOn.org campaigns against gutting the Clean Air Act, Green Party leaders and community health advocates offer an articulate challenge to Waxman-Markey, and the wave of support building behind 350.org puts organizations in my home state, like the Mass Council of Churches and Sustainable Business Network, far out in advance of mainline green groups. Rainforest Action Network and Greenpeace are the only nationally known environmental organizations honest enough to acknowledge that the king has no clothes.

It seemed clear from the get-go that U.S. environmentalists would eventually find ourselves in such a jam, where the imperatives of pragmatic politics and seductions of techno-solutions would warp our better judgement, unless we stuck to a very clear interpretation of the precautionary principle. Bill McKibben recently remarked that, having already lost the arctic, we’re past the point of precaution; it’s now a stark matter of survival. True enough, but the core logic of the precautionary approach is valid and stands in counterpoint to our present pathway – a fundamental cognitive clash between scientific realism and political pragmatism.

There is no simple answer, but the Faustian Senate bargain before us is so antithetical to environmentalist principles that it ought to cause even the most hardened Hill advocate to pause. In such quiet, personal moments of uncertainty, I suggest it is worthwhile to consider what those trained in the Nader/PIRG tradition call the “problem/solution statement.” The point of the exercise is to maintain an absolute standard of reference for the immensity of the challenge before us and scale of the solution it demands.

Problem Statement. Differences in opinion on the bright line for averting cataclysm (1.5º vs. 2.0ºC limit on temperature increase and 275 vs. 300-350 ppm cap on carbon concentrations) are relatively small in light of overall trends, and our institutional support for the nominal CASE 450 ppm target is a concession we would not make left to our own devices.

The conceptual divergence in taking the next step from temperature/carbon concentration, however, is significant. Our entire enterprise is based on a single metric—emissions. Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger are absolutely correct in identifying the pollution prevention mindset as a roadblock to understanding the problem. If we conceive climate in terms of smokestacks and tailpipes, we are dealing with the last step in a long series of choices and the solutions we contemplate are thereby cramped. It is seldom acknowledged that fossil fuel interests also promote the pollution prevention paradigm as a fall-back to denial (with the apogee in our simpatico thinking reached when environmentalists agreed to measure oil companies by their success in cutting plant emissions, while ignoring their main business). Relative investment in fossil fuels vs. renewables, as Ted and Michael suggest, is a better method of understanding the problem because it takes in the long lead time in capital investment (and, in their view, pits a positive green future head-to-head against a dirty, inefficient and regressive society of the past).

The better measure, I think, was conceived by Greenpeace International climate campaign Bill Hare and presented in his brilliant, prescient 1989 paper, The Carbon Logic.  Hare, who remains an adviser to Greenpeace, and co-author Malte Meinshausen, both researchers at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, published an updated analysis of the Carbon Logic in the April 30, 2009 edition of Nature, Greenhouse-gas emission targets for limiting global warming to 2°C, which concludes that “less than a quarter of the proven fossil fuel reserves can be burnt and emitted between now and 2050, if global warming is to be limited to two degrees Celsius (2°C).”

An upcoming post will present a solution statement commensurate with this definition of the problem, but that analysis is not necessary to conclude that Waxman-Markey, with its explicit promotion of fossil fuels, stands in flat contradiction to the imperative before us, which is to halt exploration for new fossil fuel deposits and cap extractions at 1/4 of known reserves. If environmentalists do not acknowledge this reality, we are doing nothing but dreaming up imaginary ladders.

In 2004, the largest logger in Tasmania, Gunns Ltd. surprised the world by suing 20 of its strongest critics, charging them with 9 separate acts of misconduct. Every single action these activists had taken had been nonviolent, ranging from organizing massive street protests to lobbying government to stop Gunns from destroying Tasmania’s old growth forests. Had Gunns been successful, it would have sent a chilling effect across the world for all activists who exercise free speech in defense of the earth. Fortunately, this is one battle that the good guys won.

Now, a quick note on Gunns, which is about as bad as a logging company can get. It clearcuts old growth forests for copy paper, then sets fires in the forest to burn anything that might remain, and sets poison traps to kill any wildlife that has escaped the logging and fires and might feed on newly-established plantations. Naturally, activists across Australia and around the world got involved in protests against Gunns.

Among the Gunns 20 was the Australian Wilderness Society, an ally organization of RAN’s. Through our office in Japan, since 2006 RAN has been working with The Wilderness Society to educate Japanese customers about the beautiful old growth forests of Tasmania, the horrible logging practices of Gunns, and the role of the Japanese paper industry in supporting Gunns’ old growth logging. 80% of Tasmania’s pulp and paper is exported to Japan, where it is manufactured into disposable paper products like tissue and copy paper.

In 2007 RAN’s Global Finance campaign advised ANZ Bank to not finance Gunns’ pulp mill. Eventually ANZ listened, and to this date Gunns is struggling to find financing for the pulp mill. Meanwhile Gunns’ stock price is barely worth the old growth paper it’s printed on, and despite the horrible economic climate the company continues to pursue the idea that it needs to build a new pulp mill. Through our most recent conversations with Japanese customers, they are becoming less interested in buying Gunns’ paper: Ricoh, Canon and Fuji Xerox are all asking suppliers Oji Paper and Nippon Paper to exclude old growth fiber from Gunns.

RAN activists in Tokyo protest at ANZ branch

One surprising measure of how effective forest activists are is the level of repression they face. Cheers to The Wilderness Society for standing up and fighting back!

USGS reports that “Before European settlement, forests covered nearly one billion acres of what is now the United States.” Data tables from the UN Forest Resource Asessment 2005 show that only 257, 439,329 acres (104,182,000 ha) of “primary” forests remain in the US (defined as where there are no clearly visible indications of human activities and the ecological processes are not significantly disturbed). This would indicate that roughly %25.7 of the US original forest cover remains as “primary” forest. Authoritative? Sure, but forestry numbers from the UN are notoriously bad.

Global Forest watch reports that

Approximately 20% of North American forests have been permanently cleared for agriculture and other uses, primarily within the last two centuries (Bryant, et al. 1997). Currently, forest cover is stable (Matthews, et al. 2000); however, in most of the lower 48 states and southern Canada, remaining forests have experienced significant human disturbance and do not possess the same degree of ecological integrity as the original forest. As human populations grow, forest fragmentation and degradation continues. One result has been the loss of extensive areas of old-growth forest. According to one estimate, stands of century-old forest now account for only 7% of forest cover in the United States (USDA-FS 2000).

Meanwhile, the University of Michigan says

Since 1600, 90% of the virgin forests that once covered much of the lower 48 states have been cleared away. Most of the remaining old-growth forests in the lower 48 states and Alaska are on public lands. In the Pacific Northwest about 80% of this forestland is slated for logging.

Thinking bigger? My summary of research on “how many trees are cud down every year” (globally) was an earlier topic of the Understory.

As you can read in our letter to the FSC Executive Director (ran-to-fsc-101308), the FSC’s Controlled Wood Standard has serious problems with inclusion of wood fiber in violation of the FSC’s rules. Meanwhile, critics have alleged that ‘an estimated sixty percent of FSC timbers come from ancient forests’. As FSC members, RAN is asking the FSC to respond to this claim by providing accurate data regarding the percentage of FSC timbers derived from primary (never industrially managed) and old-growth (older than 200 years) forests.

As RAN undertakes our strategic review of the Forest Stewardship Council’s (FSC’s) benefits and costs, how the FSC responds to these controversies will affect whether, and how much, RAN can continue supporting the FSC. In coming months, we will continue to report back our conclusions to our members and supporters. Stay tuned.

Stephens is either experiencing memory loss or mincing words too carefully. At issue is “Boise and the Environment“, a 2003 document variously referred to in public relations materials from the company as a “statement”, “policy” or “commitment.”

While not a formal agreement like a contract, the statement certainly made a big impression. Boise’s press release describing “Boise’s commitment to work with environmental groups to successfully eliminate the purchase of wood products from endangered areas” earned feature coverage in the Wall Street Journal. That sounds a lot like an agreement to me–and a very public one that should register as such with Mr. Stephens and his Brand Managers.

Why? Because since Stephens took the reins at in 2004, Boise has diminished its reputation by taking two steps back from the step forward it made in 2003. The first step back was to pick a fight with RAN and others by quietly re-writing its “Boise and the Environment” commitments in 2005 just as its loggers were moving into Old Growth areas of the Deschutes National Forest. Step two followed another website re-write when  Boise ran into trouble early this year for selling paper sourced from disputed Indigenous lands to OfficeMax (links to pdf).

Boise’s current comments are summarized in its “Wood Procurement Policy” that contains no reference to its former 2003 statement. Prior commitments to work with conservation organizations on Endangered Areas, establish a robust chain-of-custody program, encourage reforestation by its suppliers, support wilderness area designations and report annually on its efforts are all missing.

Could Stephens reworking of Boise’s policies merely be a realistic response to Boise’s reorganization from logger to manufacturer? Maybe. Boise has, after all, made some good moves with Stephens at the helm.  But even if you think our beef is just the angry recriminations of an ENGO scorned, consider that Stephens could benefit from his own lesson in managing conflict and controversy. Had Stephens been more transparent with RAN and others about Boise’s policies and motives over the years, we could have anticipated these controversies and advised Boise on avoiding them without pulling its brand and those of its customers into the harsh light of a market campaign.

Next time maybe. Till then, I suggest Stephens contemplates his own advice: “communication is the key to resolving conflicts.”

I’ll add one more: agreements matter.

On July 14th, the Ontario government agreed to prohibit development on at least half of the remaining wilderness areas in the region’s northern boreal forest – protecting about 56 million acres.

To put this in perspective, 56 million acres is about half the size of California, or 80 times the size of Yosemite National Park. It’s about equal to nearly all of the remaining roadless areas in the entire United States. If the government keeps its promise, we’ll have protected the largest untouched forest in Canada and the 3rd largest wetland in the world.

Not too bad, eh?

As much as this is encouraging news for critters and the climate (northern boreal ecosystems store about 97 billion tons of CO2), it’s also an important milestone for human rights in Canada, and maybe even the future of environmentalism. Here’s why. In addition to committing to protect important wilderness areas, the Ontario government also acknowledged its responsibility to seek the consent of its indigenous people, stating: “because any decision on development has the greatest affect on communities, local planning will only be done in agreement with First Nations.”

That might seem like a simple statement, but it has huge ramifications. As we learned in grade school, the last several centuries of human history is filled with ugly, tragic stories of Indigenous people being decimated or forced off their land by settlers and, more recently, industrial development. From the Amazon to Alberta, Indigenous communities continue to be threatened by oil, logging, mining, and other industries. But if the Ontario Government keeps its word, the 36 First Nations communities living in this region would have the right to refuse destructive projects on their territory.

That’s a huge victory, and it was won by a unique coalition that realized that environmental and human rights are one and the same. Indigenous communities such as Grassy Narrows, KI, Ardoch, Six Nations and others have been on the front lines of battles to assert their sovereign rights. In coordination with an international alliance of environmental, labor, and immigrant rights organizations, students, faith-based communities, and human rights groups, they’ve blockaded logging roads, lobbied the provincial government, and have created the political space for change. “It is critical that any development of natural resources in the Far North must respect Aboriginal and treaty rights while supporting an environmentally sustainable economic future for our people,” said Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) Grand Chief Stan Beardy.

What’s next? First, we need to follow through to make sure this victory is fully realized. Visit here for the latest update. Meanwhile, a similar coalition of diverse interests can encourage other provinces in Canada to follow Ontario’s lead. On the heels of the boreal victory, last week the Mikisew Cree and Athabasca Chipewyan First Nations filed a suit against the Alberta and federal government, asking the court to rule invalid the government authorization for thousands of oil projects on the band’s core territory.

It is clear that we are witnessing a transformation of the values and voices that determine resource extraction in Canada. The boreal is “unspoiled and undisturbed,” Ontario Premier McGuinty says. “And if there’s one thing we know for sure, it’s not going to stay that way forever unless we do something…It’s our responsibility as global citizens to get this right and to act now.”
Amen! Care to join us to make sure he keeps his word?

The government release states that “[p]lanning at the community level will be a true partnership. Because any decision on development has the greatest affect on communities, local planning will only be done in agreement with First Nations… To ensure proper planning and community input, new forestry and the opening of new mines in the
Far North would require community land use plans supported by local Aboriginal communities.”

If properly implemented, the commitment to require community “support” for new forestry and mines, and for local planning “done in agreement” with First Nations could be a big step forward in enforcing the right of Indigenous communities to free, prior, and informed consent over land-use decisions on their territories. This is a clear outcome of the power that First Nations communities like Grassy Narrows, KI, Ardoch, and Six Nations have built in Ontario.

It is still unclear how these commitments to First Nations controlled planning will be reconciled with the pre-determined goal of 50% protection, nor is it clear whether similar planning will be promised to First Nations in the rest of the province. It is also unclear what the fate of the remaining 50% of this ecologically intact region will be.

The planned protected area is as large as the entire US roadless areas network, 80 times the size of Yosemite National Park, and half the size of California.

Check back in soon for some analysis and for a RAN position on this development.

Sources:
Government of Ontario press release

Nishnaabe Aski Nation news release
Matawa First Nations respond to Ontario’s Far North Planning Initiative
Chiefs of Ontario statement
Union of Ontario Indians statement
KI Friends Blog
Indian Country: Ontario presents plan of permanent protection
Wawatay News: Early FN consultation part of Far North planning Initiative

Globe and Mail: Ontario vows to protect boreal forest
Toronto Star: Ontario to protect vast tract
Toronto Star: Ontario First Nations demand firm right to say ‘no’ to mining developments
Toronto Star: Premier gives ‘natures way’ a chance
Toronto Star: Proceed with caution on boreal promise
Toronto Sun: Vast forest protected – somewhere
Toronto Sun: Mine Deal Rocks North
Kenora Daily Miner: Province to work with First Nations on consultation process
Canadian Mining Journal: Half of Northern Ontario now off-limits to mineral industry
Canadian Mining Journal: More thoughts on protecting Ontario’s boreal forests

Map of NAN communities and lands

Sept. 21 action with Grassy, KI, Ardoch, and CPT

June 25, 07 action at Provincial Legislature with Grassy and KI , and CPT

Mind you, this is not terribly surprising–when Canadian customs started seizing our laptops and cameras at the border a couple years back, we kinda figured the snoop was on. What’s unsettling is that snooper was Canada’s shiny new counter-terrorism office.

The Post peeked at 22 secret reports including daily briefings prepared by Integrated Threat Assessment Center (ITAC) during the week last Summer’s protests. Daily briefings! And what does ITAC do? According to the FAQ on its website,

ITAC’s role is to help prevent and reduce the effects of terrorist incidents on Canada and its people, both at home and abroad.

Ok, fine. Good goal… So then what then what the hell were they doing in Grassy Narrows? First, the action wasn’t even in Grassy Narrows that week. It was in Toronto, where we joined the Christian Peacemaker Teams and folks from Grassy and KI to erect a big teepee on the legislature lawn to draw attention to Provincial backsliding on its obligations respect the rights of those communities (pictures, video).

Then there’s that Terrorism thing. No terrorists here, see? Just young folks trying to make a point creatively.

Aside from the astonishing waste of time and money, the unfortunate consequence of this kind of surveillance is that it makes us all less safe. It’s frightening to think that national authorities established precisely to prevent terrorism would rather rather justify their paychecks chasing protesters like us.

On June 19th, 2008, RAN hosted a conference call to discuss the Old Growth Campaign’s part in the Indigenous lead efforts that brought us to the tremendous news that AbitibiBowater had decided it was time to leave the Whiskey Jack forest in the traditional territory of the Asubpeeschoseewagong, or Grassy Narrows First Nation people who have lived in that beautiful and priceless area for thousands of years.

(From www.freegrassy.org) Asubpeeschoseewagong – the Indigenous or Ojibway name for Grassy Narrows – is situated 80 kilometers north of Kenora, Ontario in Canada. The community membership is approximately 1,000, and their traditional land use area spans a forest of approximately 2,500 miles. The community has lived sustainably for millennia, using the forest for physical, economic, cultural and spiritual sustenance.  Approximately 50 percent of the community still lives a subsistence way of life where members depend upon hunting, trapping, and gathering berries and medicines from the land.

The Grassy Narrows community has been through many traumas including attendance in white-governed residential schools, forced relocation away from their traditional living areas, mercury contamination, flooding of sacred grounds and burial sites, and clearcut logging of their forests. These traumas have led to many social, health and economic problems, as well as the near devastation of the culture.

For thousands of years this community has been strong and self-reliant.  Now, as a result of the continued economic dispossession and cultural annihilation that they have suffered, Grassy Narrows exhibits the signs of distress that have become typical of First Nations communities across Canada.  Indigenous people, as compared to any other racial or cultural group in Canada, have the lowest life expectancies, highest infant mortality rates, substandard and overcrowded housing, lower education and employment levels, and the highest incarceration rates.

In the face of this oppression, the people of Grassy Narrows are actively resisting the continued destruction of their territories, re-occupying their lands, reviving their culture and fighting for the right to manage their land as they see fit, otherwise known as self-determination.

It is an incredible honor to work in solidarity with these people and their allies, and it is a great day when we can announce the results of our work together in fighting for their land and their rights to self-determination, and for the rights of the Earth.

We hope you enjoy this audio recording of a breakdown of RAN’s involvement in this campaign. In it you will hear from some of our Old Growth campaign staff as well as some of the activists and volunteers who helped make the withdrawal of AbitibiBowater a reality.

In addition to the recording attached to this post, I encourage you to also listen to this interview on CBC National primetime radio with Roberta Keesick, a Grassy Narrows grandmother, trapper, and defender of the land.  It is a great piece and it gives people a chance to also hear directly from someone from Grassy.

LINK to the Grassy Conference Call – click here to listen

CBC National primetime interview with Roberta Keesick

Article on AlterNet

Feature Article in Toronto’s Now Magazine

Article on rabble.ca

Environmental News Service newswire

The Toronto Star

Campaign background

Launched in 1992, the Old Growth Campaign is the oldest campaign at RAN. Our first major victory came in 1999, when it obtained a groundbreaking commitment from Home Depot to phase out the purchase of old-growth wood. Major brands throughout the forest products industry soon followed suit, including companies like Lowe’s, 84 Lumber, Centex, KB Home, and others.

The campaign then moved on to Boise Cascade, another major purchaser of old-growth wood. In 2004, Boise became the first major forest products company to establish a policy against old-growth logging within the United States.

After the Boise Cascade win, the Old Growth Campaign decided to target Seattle-based Weyerhaeuser Corp., the largest lumber company in the world. Weyerhaeuser obtains a significant percentage of its wood from clear-cuts of Canada’s Boreal Forest. More than 10 times the size of California, the Boreal stretches across North America from Alaska to the Atlantic Ocean and forms part of a ring of forest that encircles the entire planet just below the Arctic tundra. It is also the largest terrestrial storehouse of organic carbon – a critical defense against global warming.

Targeting Weyerhaeuser also meant that we could profile the Grassy Narrows First Nation as an example of Weyerhaeuser’s disregard for human rights and environmental protection. The Grassy Narrows community’s traditional territory includes 2,500 square miles of forests, lakes and rivers in northwestern Ontario. The community has struggled against industrial development and destruction of their territory for decades. In 2002, after years of negotiating with the Ontario provincial government and corporations logging on their territory, filing lawsuits to assert sovereignty over their land, and speaking out against the many health, economic, cultural and environmental effects of extractive industry on their land, the youth in Grassy Narrows decided to blockade one of the logging roads on their territory. That blockade is still active today, and stands as the longest running Indigenous logging blockade in Canadian history. The people of Grassy Narrows have stood firm in their demand to determine the future of their land, and in January of 2007 demanded a full moratorium of all industrial activity on their territory. RAN has worked in close partnership with the Grassy Narrows community since 2003, and our relationship with the community has taught all of us at RAN great deal about the importance of taking leadership from communities that are on the front lines of environmental destruction.

On Tuesday, June 3 we got word that AbitibiBowater, the Canadian logging company that is responsible for all of the logging on Grassy Narrows would immediately stop logging on the Grassy Narrows territory because of the conflict with the First Nation community. This was a huge victory for the people of Grassy Narrows, the Old Growth team, and all of the many activists who have taken part in this effort, as our years of hard work targeting Weyerhaeuser, OfficeMax, Grand & Toy and the Ontario government finally means the end of logging in Grassy Narrows – at least for now. We are thrilled and proud to have been a part of the struggle for Indigenous rights for Indigenous people in Canada and the Grassy Narrows First Nation – and we intend to continue to support these struggles in our campaigns in the future.

Campaign strategies

When we decided to target Weyerhaeuser, we wanted to do what RAN does best, pressure Weyerhaeuser in the marketplace. Because Weyerhaeuser is a U.S. based logging company, and most of the wood products from their operations in Canada are destined for the US consumers, we thought that Weyerhaeuser would be a great target for a RAN campaign.

No Weyerhaeuser Grocery Bags!

The Old Growth campaign started out by putting pressure on grocery stores that sold paper bags made by Weyerhaeuser. The campaign was especially strong in southern California where a RAN chapter protested outside of their neighborhood Wild Oats health food stores until they successfully pressured them to stop using Weyerhaeuser bags. Soon after Wild Oats moved away from Weyerhaeuser bags, Trader Joes followed suit.

RAN’s Home-Builder Strategy

Next, the campaign looked to Weyerhaeuser’s home-building subsidiaries in the United States. Weyerhaeuser owns five home-building subsidiaries across the United States, all of which use wood logged in Grassy Narrows in their construction. Activists in Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle and Washington D.C. protested in front of new homes and model homes to put pressure on the subsidiaries to stop building American dream homes from a Native nightmare!

The campaign escalated our protests against these home-building subsidiaries, especially Quadrant homes, which is based in the Seattle area, Weyerhaeuser’s home-town. In February 2007, two RAN activists got significant media attention when they climbed on the roof of a Quadrant Home in a Seattle suburb and refused to leave until Weyerhaeuser pulled out of Grassy Narrows. The two were arrested by police with a fire-fighter’s ladder after several hours, just as helicopters from Seattle area television stations arrived – they were live at 5! RAN also targeted Quadrant’s headquarters in Bellevue, Washington in the spring of 2007 the day before Weyerhaeuser’s annual shareholder meeting, by dropping a banner reading “Weyerhaeuser: Human Rights Abuser.”

Organizing in Canada

In the summer of 2006, the Old Growth campaign hosted an incredibly successful summer internship program in Grassy Narrows. Nine interns from North America spent the summer living in Grassy Narrows on the blockade site learning about the culture, and supporting the struggle of the Grassy Narrows First Nation. In July, the interns along with Grassy Narrows community members and activists from Ontario blockaded the Trans-Canada highway in Kenora, Ontario. The action got attention from Canadian press, and was an incredibly bold statement for Indigenous rights in Canada.

During the campaign, RAN coordinated a number of actions in Canada to highlight the importance of Indigenous land rights. Besides the Trans-Canada blockade, we erected a tepee on the lawn in front of the Ontario Legislative building in Toronto reading “Native Rights Now!,” and we organized a march in coalition with the Christian Peacemaker Teams to unfurl a giant yellow arrow pointing toward the Legislative building reading “Native Land Rights Now.” That banner, which we took aerial photos of, has become iconic of the campaign. Most recently, RAN was integral in organizing a week-long camp out in front of the Ontario Legislative building which included representatives from Grassy Narrows, Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI), and the Ardoch Algonquin First Nations in Ontario. A coalition of over a dozen environmental, human rights, and faith organizations in Canada also participated.

Targeting Boise, OfficeMax and Grand & Toy

This past winter, the campaign decided to pivot our focus away from Weyerhaeuser for a moment, and to direct attention to Boise Inc., a company that we had targeted just a few years ago. This time we demanded that Boise stop purchasing pulp from Grassy Narrows. Boise is the other major purchaser from AbitibiBowater, other than Weyerhaeuer, of wood products from Grassy Narrows. We decided to target Boise’s retail presence by organizing a day of action against OfficeMax locations in the United States, and Grand & Toy locations in Canada. The day of action was a huge success, with 34 actions taking place all over North America at the end of January 2008. After the success of the day of action, our attention turned to a group of students at Ohio State University in Columbus who were engaged in a long-running campaign to get their campus to purchase sustainable forest products, excluding copy paper from OfficeMax as long as it was made from wood from Grassy Narrows.

At the end of February we had a major victory when Boise announced publicly that they would no longer purchase pulp coming from Grassy Narrows through logging company AbitibiBowater.

Campaign Accomplishments

Over the course of the campaign, Weyerhaeuser made a few significant changes to the way that they do business that are positive, but have gone without much fanfare on our part. Weyerhaeuser is no longer operating in important rainforests in British Columbia, and when they merged their paper division with Domtar, a Canadian logging company that is committed to FSC certification, it meant that forests now logged under Domtar’s management will have to meet more strict forest management practices.

It has been such an honor to work with so many amazing people on this campaign in the two years that I’ve been at RAN. I have been continually amazed by the level of commitment brought to this work by people all over North America, whether they are people who have spent time in Grassy Narrows, long time forest activists, students, donors or people willing to stand in 100 degree heat with a banner because Indigenous rights is an issue that is critically important to all of us. The people of Grassy Narrows have been struggling to protect their culture, their land, and their rights for decades, and AbitibiBowater’s announcement, while significant, is not the end of the work that remains to be done. I hope that we all can look at this campaign and think about how we can continue to support the community in Grassy Narrows, and apply what we have learned to our work in the future.

-Annie