May, 18 2010, 11:41am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
William Craven, US media requests: 415.863.4563 x. 314
Kristi Chester Vance, Canadian media requests 415.902.5885
ForestEthics and the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement: A Historic Opportunity
Today ForestEthics, along with 8 other leading environmental
organizations and twenty-one forest products companies, announced the
landmark Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement. The ambitious initiative
commences with a moratorium on all logging across more than 70 million
acres of rich Boreal Forest, as key parties begin long-term
conservation planning over 175 million acres - an area the size of Texas.
WASHINGTON
Today ForestEthics, along with 8 other leading environmental
organizations and twenty-one forest products companies, announced the
landmark Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement. The ambitious initiative
commences with a moratorium on all logging across more than 70 million
acres of rich Boreal Forest, as key parties begin long-term
conservation planning over 175 million acres - an area the size of Texas.
Find out the full list of signatory organizations and companies, and read the press release here.
The largest conservation initiative in history,
the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement seeks to conserve critical Boreal
Forest land, preserve the vulnerable woodland caribou, and implement
world-leading forestry practices. While this planning is done over the
next three years, members of the Forest Products Association of Canada
will honor a moratorium on logging covering 29 million
hectares (71 million acres) of prime caribou habitat - an area the size
of New Zealand.
Read the details of the agreement >>
ForestEthics Executive Director Todd Paglia released the following statement today:
"ForestEthics'
work with huge US corporate consumers of paper has, along with our
allies, quite simply transformed the standards by which the American
marketplace chooses its paper - and that is changing how
forests are treated in North America. This is critically important
because forests are not about the trees - forests are really about the
people and wildlife that depend upon them for their survival."
"This
is the sort of globally significant action required around the world to
stave off the worst impacts of climate change, species loss, and the
continued stress on the Earth's natural systems which provide us with
air to breath and water to drink."
Take Action
Right
now, the ink is drying on what is potentially the largest conservation
initiative in history - in Canada's precious Boreal Forest - and we
need you to act. Make sure this agreement protects our forests, pulls
endangered caribou back from the brink, and fights climate change:
Pledge to be a Boreal Watchdog now >>
The ForestEthics Backstory on the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement: markets campaigns create leverage for change
Eight
years ago, ForestEthics was faced with a stark reality: Canada's Boreal
Forest - the second largest forest in the world - was being logged at a
rate of two acres per minute, 24 hours a day. ForestEthics followed the
money to the US marketplace, whose consumption was driving the
destruction of the Boreal Forest to produce catalogs, junk mail, and
other paper products.
In 2000, ForestEthics launched a
campaign targeting the office supply industry, which at that point had
virtually no environmental paper standards. In the years that
followed, new paper policies, more sustainable paper purchasing
decisions, and direct communications from companies including FedEx
Office, OfficeDepot, and Staples have been a powerful incentive for
reform in the Boreal. In 2005, ForestEthics' impact on the
issue was confirmed when an independent report stated that recycled
paper mills were operating at record-high capacity due to demand from
the office supply sector--the very sector we'd targeted.
Check out our report on the paper practices of the office supply sector, Green Grades 2009.
Next up was the catalog sector: ForestEthics earned a watershed 2007 victory over Victoria's Secret and parent company Limited Brands
in a campaign to get the company out of Endangered Boreal Forests. As
our leverage in the marketplace grew, so did the list of large
catalogers implementing forest-friendly paper policies with our
guidance: Williams-Sonoma, Crate & Barrel, Patagonia, Macy's, Dell,
and several others. Put simply, the catalog industry's paper
practices shifted: by 2009 the number of large catalog companies who
met our expectations on core forest-friendly criteria had quadrupled.
Meanwhile,
our allies were making huge strides to help transform the paper
industry: In 2007, Canopy (formerly called Markets Initiative)
pressured Scholastic into printing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
on FSC-certified paper. By 2009 Greenpeace had reached an agreement
with paper giant Kimberly-Clark that would guarantee that the company
would be out of non-FSC certified Boreal lands by 2011.
All of this set the stage for today's ambitious initiative. We promise to help it reach its fullest potential.
ForestEthics'
unique ability to turn our corporate adversaries into allies has helped
us secure agreements to protect more than 65 million acres of forest
land, including the Great Bear Rainforest, the Inland Temperate
Rainforest, Chile's Native Forests and Canada's Boreal Forest.
Media Kit
Download
high-resolution images >>
Request
high-resolution B-Roll >>
Download the official announcement press release >>
Download the
map of the Area of
Suspended Timber Harvest in Boreal Caribou
Range >>
Download the Highlights of the
Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement >>
Learn more at
CanadianBorealForestAgreement.com
Founded in 2000, ForestEthics is a nonprofit environmental organization with staff in Canada, the United States and Chile. Our mission is to protect Endangered Forests and wild places, wildlife, and human wellbeing--one of our focus areas is climate change, which compromises all of our efforts if left unchecked. We catalyze environmental leadership among industry, governments and communities by running hard-hitting and highly effective campaigns that leverage public dialogue and pressure to achieve our goals.
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