I am asking you to join me in taking a #StandForForests.
I need you to act today. Let me tell you why.
The $7 million lawsuit
A few months back, Greenpeace, my fellow campaigner Shane Moffatt and I were sued for $7 million by Canada’s logging giant, Resolute Forest Products, for standing up to their reckless clear-cutting of Canada’s Boreal Forest.
This lawsuit is nothing more than an attempt to silence the work we’ve been doing to expose the ugly truth about what’s really happening in Canada’s forests.
Does Resolute think that by making it personal they can shut me up? Well, that’s not going to happen.
Everyone deserves to know what is happening in the forests of Canada. And Greenpeace needs to be able to continue to expose forest destruction. That’s why I am asking you to #StandForForests with me. Help protect this critical habitat and add your name to the Guardian Tree as a symbol of our shared resolve to protect Canadian forests.
We will not be silent about Resolute’s destructive practices
Resolute Forest Products is the largest logging company in the country. Its reckless operations are destroying critical habitat for the endangered woodland caribou and many other species that call the forest home. I’ve seen firsthand what Resolute is doing to the forest. In recent months, Greenpeace exposed Resolute’s logging in “Endangered Forests” and their operations in First Nations traditional territories without consent. We showed how logging in the habitat of caribou threatens this species’ survival. It is for practices like these among others, that Resolute had three of its Forest Stewardship Council certificates for forest management, covering an area of 8 million hectares, suspended. That’s an area 127 times bigger than the city of Toronto. Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is widely recognized as the highest global certification standard for forest management.
Yet, despite all this it seems Resolute is unwilling to take the steps needed to create real solutions to protect these forests that scientists say must be protected. Resolute would rather try to silence their critics with an over the top lawsuit than take responsibility for protecting the forest. They’d rather sue Greenpeace and me for $7 million.
I’m not afraid of Resolute. But the forest needs us. It needs you. This is big…and we are just getting started.
Take Action: Visit Standforforests.ca to help protect this critical habitat. By signing the pledge you are adding your name to the Guardian Tree; a specially commissioned art piece that will be presented to Resolute Forest Products as a symbol of our stand for forests.
In solidarity,
Richard Brooks
Richard Brooks, Forest Campaign Coordinator for Greenpeace Canada, has been with Greenpeace for more than a decade. Richard Brooks was listed as one of most influential people in the Pulp and Paper Sector, on RISI/Pulp and Paper Magazine's inaugural Top 50 Power List, and named one of Canada’s 2013 Clean50 honourees.