Rainforest Action Network Expands Misleading Greenwashing of Primary Forest Logging

EI PRESS/SOCIAL MEDIA RELEASE
Rainforest Action Network Expands Misleading Greenwashing of Primary Forest Logging

RAN’s recent “rainforest safe” book and luxury shopping bag campaigns show they value greenwashing primary forest logging and sustaining old growth timber markets more than ecological science showing without primary forest logging ban biosphere collapses. Ecological Internet renews demand that RAN stops promoting primary forest logging as a false solution to rainforest loss and diminishment, and resigns from Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) immediately.

June 12, 2010
Contact: Dr. Glen Barry, glenbarry

Despite escalating international protest, Rainforest Action Network (RAN) continues to promote Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification of first time industrial logging of primary forests. RAN’s new “Rainforest Safe Summer Reading List” [1] and “Gucci Shopping Bag” [2] campaigns falsely claim FSC certified paper products are free of rainforest destruction. In fact, most FSC products come from the first time industrial logging of primary forests or from toxic, industrial monoculture plantations which displace old forests. Virtually all of FSC’s tropical timbers and fibers come from such sources.

“The world’s rainforests, biodiversity, ecosystems, climate and biosphere are in a state of severe crisis and are collapsing; and the best Rainforest Action Network can do is continue lying regarding where FSC certified products come from, and shilling for primary forest books and shopping bags? As America’s largest rainforest protection group, RAN raises and expends more monies on behalf of rainforests than any organization, yet continues to insist FSC logging of primary forests ‘protects’ rainforests. This old forest logging appeasement will continue to be challenged by biocentric ecologists. Unless this NGO greenwash ends, and we join forces to end primary forest logging, the future of Earth and all life are at stake,” states Dr. Glen Barry, Ecological Internet President.

After years of protest against RAN’s support of FSC, and several broken promises to address the matter, RAN is still unable to answer the question of how logging 500 year old trees in millions of year old ecosystem – in this case for children’s books and high-end Gucci shopping bags – meaningfully protects rainforests. RAN’s “market campaigns” completely miss the point that over-consumption in general and paper in particular is the problem. Having co-founded, been long-time active members, and being one of the leading radical supporters of FSC; RAN and FSC are unable or unwilling to state publicly the exact percentage or even an approximation of FSC certified products which come from primary and old growth forest loss and severe ecological diminishment when selectively logged for the first time.

“With FSC having certified over 133 million hectares, Ecological Internet stands by our analysis – using the national certification figures, the only information FSC provides on the matter, and what is known about forestry practices in each country – to estimate 60% of FSC timber comes from first time industrial primary forest logging. This means that FSC and RAN’s past and planned certification is destroying for throw-away consumption an area two times the massive state of Texas,” says Dr. Barry.

“This is greenwash of an unmatched immensity, and all RAN (and Greenpeace [3]) supporters are responsible for this destruction of the last primary forests to make Gucci bags, books and toilet paper. Ecological Internet understands this campaign makes some conservationists feel uneasy, yet this is ecological skullduggery of unimagined magnitude. This behavior by any other segment of society would be held to account as well. All environmental groups – and their members and donors – supporting FSC primary forest logging must stop their policy of promoting logging of 500 year old trees for throw away consumer items.”

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Primary rainforests have tremendous species numbers, carbon stores and provide ecosystem services – water, nutrient and energy cycling – required for a habitable Earth. When primary rainforests are lost or diminished through first time industrial harvest – be it outright deforestation or ‘selective’ first time logging – local ecological and social conditions deteriorate, regional weather and species distributions change, and the global biosphere and its ability to maintain conditions for life are weakened. Recent ecological science makes clear old forests continue to sequester new carbon, and that selectively logging primary forests leads to more forest fires.

All global ecological indicators show Earth and humanity have surpassed the amount of primary, old growth and other intact terrestrial ecosystems that can be lost and still maintain a habitable planet. RAN’s lack of primary forest protection vision and minor market campaign tinkering would be laughable if it wasn’t greenwashing industrial primary forest logging of the ecosystems necessary for humanity’s shared survival. These books and shopping bags promoted by RAN are likely from clearcut FSC certified primary boreal forests, or from industrial tropical tree plantations displacing native forests and peoples.

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Please join Ecological Internet’s campaign to get “Greenpeace and RAN Out of FSC Primary Forest Logging Now!” on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/oldforests and Ecological Internet at http://www.facebook.com/ecointernet

[1] RAN’s “Rainforest Safe Summer Reading List” – http://ran.org/content/rainforest-safe-summer-reading-list . Falsely states” “FSC certified or recycled paper [allows] parents the assurance of knowing that their childrens’ books are not contributing to the loss of Indonesia’s or other endangered rainforests.”

[2] “Gucci’s Luxury Packaging Gets a Green(er) Makeover” http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/06/gucci-luxury-packaging-gets-a-greener-makeover.php

[3] “RELEASE: Greenpeace Partners with Industry Logging Canadian Boreal Forests”
http://forests.org/blog/2010/05/release-greenpeace-partners-wi.asp

DISCUSS THIS RELEASE: http://www.rainforestportal.org/blog/ and http://www.facebook.com/ecointernet

The WWF and Tree Monoculture Plantations

The WWF and Tree Monoculture Plantations

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF), in addition to being the object of

harsh criticism for its membership in the Round Table on Responsible

Soy, is also under fire for giving its seal of approval to a United

Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) tree monoculture

plantation certification scheme, which the World Rainforest Movement

(WRM) considers fraudulent.

The WWF currently directs and coordinates a “New Generation

Plantations Project” with the participation of tree plantation firms

such as Forestal Oriental, a subsidiary of Finland’s UPM/Kymmene

operating in Uruguay; Portucel, which has operations in Uruguay;

Smurfit Kappa Cartón, an Irish-Dutch company operating in Colombia;

and the Swedish-Finnish Stora-Enso, whose operations in Brazil and

Uruguay are the object of controversy.

“Around the world, millions of hectares of productive land are quickly

being converted to green deserts disguised as ‘forests’”, declared the

Latin American Network Against Tree Monocultures in August 2009.

“Local communities are displaced in order to make room for unending

rows of identical trees – eucalyptus, pine, oil palm, rubber trees,

jatropha (physic nut), and other species – which replace nearly all

other forms of life in the zone. Cultivable land, crucial for the food

sovereignty of local communities, is converted into monoculture tree

plantations producing raw materials for export. Water resources are

contaminated and exhausted by the plantations, while the earth is

degraded”.

“What WWF is actually doing is to promote the expansion of tree

monocultures and helping to greenwash the long – and well documented –

history of past and present destructive activities of the companies

and organizations involved in this project,” denounces the WRM. “At

the same time, it is assisting the beleaguered FAO by continuing to

define tree plantations as “planted forests”, thereby weakening the

growing civil society demand for changing a definition that has so

much served plantation companies for obscuring the true and negative

nature of these monocultures.”

Source:

World Rainforest Movement, Bulletin 153, April 2010. “FAO and WWF:

birds of a feather promote ‘planted forest’ together” http://www.wrm.org.uy/index.html

Latin American Network Against Tree Monoculture, “Declaración de la

Red Latinoamericana contra los Monocultivos de Árboles”, August 1, 2009

http://www.wrm.org.uy/plantaciones/RECOMA/declaracion_08_09.html

http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/2442?utm_source=streamsend&utm_medium=email&utm_content=11192981&utm_campaign=%5BAmericas%20Program%20Updater%5D%3A%20Calder%F3n%27s%20Washington%20Trip%2C%20Arizona%u2019s%20Immigration%20Law%2C%20IDB%20Megaprojects%20Study%2C%20Militarization%20in%20Paraguay%2C%20Biodiversity%20Report%2C%20Haiti%u2019s%20Aid%20Problems

FOREST RELEASE: Greenpeace Partners with Industry Logging Canadian Boreal Forests

EI PRESS/SOCIAL MEDIA RELEASE

Greenpeace Partners with Industry Logging Canadian Boreal Forests

Along with ForestEthics and other foundation-dependent primary forest logging apologists, Greenpeace negotiates weak agreement that legitimizes continued old growth forest logging in exchange for vague promises of possible future protections. Old forest greenwashing must end.

May 21, 2010

Contact: Dr. Glen Barry, glenbarry

(Canada) – In what they gratuitously herald as the ‘world’s largest conservation agreement’, twenty Canadian forestry companies and nine environmental organizations including Greenpeace has announced an agreement that will temporarily suspend for three years any new logging in 29 million hectares of forest – about the size of Montana – to plan for possible protections of woodland caribou. In return the nine environmental groups have vowed to stop protesting the companies involved (listed below), including ending their ‘Do Not Buy’ campaigns.

More troubling, the agreement provides much needed legitimacy to timber and pulp industry efforts to log much, if not all, of the remaining 43 million hectares of Canada’s old growth Boreal forests, and ultimately much of the caribou habitat after the moratorium lapses. The agreement uses fancy, meaningless worlds like “ecosystem-based” and “sustainable forest management” to describe first time industrial logging of primary forests for toilet paper and other throw-away consumer items.

Ecological Internet (EI) President, Dr. Glen Barry, labeled the agreement “disgraceful”, saying it “traded temporary, vague protections for business as usual industrial forestry across huge expanses of primary and old growth forests.” Ecological Internet advocates a global permanent ban on industrial-scale logging in primary forests both in temperate and tropical forests, and will continue the campaign to end these practices in Canada’s ecologically priceless Boreal forests.

“Greenpeace’s commitment to ‘sustainable’ and ‘ecosystem based’ forest management—for consumer items including toilet paper and lawn furniture from old forests—is an ecological crime, as we know we have already lost more primary forests than necessary to maintain global ecosystems and the biosphere. The agreement accepts not only FSC, but industry’s own certification of antiquated logging practices. This will not stand, and local communities, provincial governments and First Nations are encouraged to reject this forest greenwash.”

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The Canadian Boreal Forest is North America’s largest primary forest, holding massive amounts of water, threatened wildlife and migratory birds, and containing 25% of the world’s remaining intact ancient forests. It is also the largest terrestrial storehouse of carbon on the planet, storing the equivalent of 27 years worth of global greenhouse gas emissions. Globally 60% of boreal forests have been diminished and fragmented, largely from logging resulting in more fires.

Ecological Internet and allies vigorously condemn Greenpeace Canada’s greenwash endorsement of continued ancient boreal forest logging, largely to make throw away paper items. They completely fail to understand that all primary and old growth forests are endangered and of high conservation value. Instead they perpetuate the ecologically criminal myth that old forests can and should be industrially logged for the first time in an environmentally acceptable manner.

Old forests must be protected and restored for global ecological sustainability. Forests logged industrially for the first time are permanently ecologically damaged in terms of composition, structure, function and dynamics. Real solutions to the Boreal forest/paper crisis require shrinking demand, increasing recyclables, and only accessing new fiber from regenerating secondary forests and mixed species, non-toxic, locally supported plantations.

EI calls upon Greenpeace to immediately cease and desist globally from negotiating agreements with industry that continue the production of throw away consumer items from Earth’s dwindling old forests. Ecological Internet calls upon Greenpeace to work for full protection of primary forests, restoration of old growth forests, and dramatic reduction in paper and timber use globally. Ecological Internet’s message remains end primary forest logging. Expect further protest urging Greenpeace to realize the forest protection movement has moved past claims of sustainable forest management in primary and old growth forests.

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Environmental organization that signed to the agreement include: Canadian Boreal Initiative, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, Canopy (formerly Markets Initiative), the David Suzuki Foundation, ForestEthics, Greenpeace, Ivey Foundation, The Nature Conservancy, and the Pew Environment Group’s International Boreal Conservation Campaign.

The companies that signed the agreement include: AbitibiBowater, Alberta Pacific Forest Industries, AV Group, Canfor, Cariboo Pulp & Paper Company, Cascades Inc., DMI, F.F. Soucy, Inc., Howe Sound Pulp and Paper, Kruger Inc., LP Canada, Mercer International, Mill & Timber Products Ltd, NewPage Port Hawkesbury Ltd, Paper Masson Ltee, SFK Pulp, Tembec Inc., Tolko Industries, West Fraser Timber Co. Ltd, Weyerhauser Compnay Limited?all represented by the Forest Products Association of Canada.

DISCUSS THIS ALERT: http://forests.org/blog/ and http://www.facebook.com/ecointernet

ENGOs Do Not Speak for Carrier Sekani Tribal Council | Nature Conservancy of Canada

NEWS RELEASE posted on May 21, 2010 by dawn

by Carrier Sekani Tribal Council

Dakelh Traditional Territory/Prince George, BC – The Carrier Sekani Tribal Council is calling on all environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) to improve their policies on working with First Nations communities, particularly CSTC communities that have unresolved land and resource claims in British Columbia, Canada. At a minimum these ENGOs should be adhering to, supporting and promoting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), which sets an international minimum standards on how First Nations and indigenous people should be treated. This includes the free, prior and informed consent of our people to decide what happens in our territories.

Vice Tribal Chief Terry Teegee said, “Recently we’ve learned that the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) accepted $2.5 million dollars from Enbridge to plant trees the company removes from its projects. This happened in spite of objections from First Nations to the Enbridge Gateway pipeline project. It is very concerning.” Enbridge is currently proposing to build a twin pipeline through CSTC territory. Both inland and coastal First Nation have united to oppose the Enbridge Gateway pipeline project because the risks of oil spills are not worth a couple of jobs and some money.

“The oil that would flow through the pipeline is the dirtiest oil there is. It comes from the Alberta Tar Sands and is Canada’s largest contributor to greenhouse gases,” noted Teegee. He added, “It’s ironic NCC would work tirelessly to conserve pristine places such as the Great Bear Rainforest and most recently in the Boreal Forest, and then take funds from a company that would put it at risk of destruction if a tanker ran aground or pipeline breached. This makes no sense whatsoever.”

Yet there is little humour in this irony. Projects like the Enbridge Gateway pipeline will contribute to the cultural genocide of Carrier Sekani people by further destroying our forests and threatening our fish we’ve survived on for thousands of years. “The cumulative impacts from the mountain pine beetle infestation has forced our people to a tipping point,” commented Tribal Chief David Luggi. “ENGOs should be working with our people since we are not going anywhere, we are in the best position to monitor and contribute to the healing of our planet,” said Tribal Chief Luggi.

CSTC is calling on ENGOs to work on developing relevant polices with First Nations. “They need to operate with social conscience and credibility. FirstVoices did not accept dirty Enbridge money.” Stated Vice Chief Teegee. “We can all work more effectively together, than we can apart. We’re open to forming partnerships and alliances, but not when ENGOs compromise our values and integrity of the protection of our peoples and cultures”, proclaimed Teegee.

-30-

For more information, contact Vice Tribal Chief Terry Teegee, tteegee, 250-640-3256.

Click here to download the PDF of this press release. Click here to read the Vancouver Media Co-op’s coverage of the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement.

http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/newsrelease/3465

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FB ALERT & RELEASE: Protest Greenpeace and Rainforest Action Network’s Censoring of Facebook Criticism of Their Support for Primary Forest Logging

ECOLOGICAL INTERNET PRESS/SOCIAL MEDIA RELEASE and FACEBOOK ALERT!

Protest Greenpeace and Rainforest Action Network’s Censoring of Facebook

Criticism of Their Support for Primary Forest Logging

Genuine and growing concern with their ongoing, publicly undefended support

for Forest Stewardship Council “certified” primary forest logging –

destroying an area two times the size of Texas – deleted, blocked and

reported to Facebook as terms of use violations.

March 22, 2010

From Earth’s Newsdesk, a project of Ecological Internet (EI)

http://www.facebook.com/ecointernet

Greenpeace US and International, as well as Rainforest Action Network, are

censoring comments of concern regarding their support for “sustainable

forest management” of old forests including primary rainforests on Facebook

and their blogs. Ecological Internet has been at the vanguard of working to

protect and restore primary and old growth forests globally by ending their

industrial logging and other developments. Unfortunately this has required

campaigning to confront Greenpeace[1] and Rainforest Action Network[2] – two

of the strongest supporters of continued primary forest logging.

“As Greenpeace condemns censorship by Nestle[3] of a YouTube video showing

their use of oil palm at the expense of orangutans, and RAN blasts Facebook

censorship of its use of tar sands financier RBC Bank’s logo, both groups

are systematically removing criticism of their support for first time

industrial primary forest logging from their facebook pages and blogs. To

who are these groups accountable,” asks Dr. Glen Barry? “For years these

groups have inconsistently promoted logging primary forests – and have

gotten away with ignoring genuine widespread concern that such old forests

are key to solving the biodiversity and climate change crises.”

Global ecological sustainability depends upon a consistent, ecologically

credible position on protecting old forests. Please visit and become

temporary ‘fans’ of the following Greenpeace (GP) and Rainforest Action

Network (RAN) facebook and blog sites, demanding the censorship end, that

they please resign from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) immediately,

and commit to ending industrial old forest logging. Please be polite yet

pointed that further censoring, stonewalling and vilification is

unacceptable.

RAN Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/rainforestactionnetwork

RAN Blog: http://understory.ran.org/

Greenpeace US Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/greenpeaceusa

Greenpeace International Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/greenpeace.international

Please fan and post copies with EI at: http://www.facebook.com/ecointernet

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