The Chain of Destruction: from the Great Bear Rainforest to the United States market

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Executive summary: The world´s ancient forests provide us with clean air and water, and places to hike, camp, fish and swim. They are home to the majority of the Earth´s terrestrial species of plants, insects, birds and animals. They regulate weather patterns and help stabilize the Earth´s climate. By storing carbon, ancient forests play a critical role in reducing global warming.Approximately 433 billion tons of carbon — more carbon than will be released from the burning of fossil fuels over the next 69 years — are stored in ancient forests. Ancient forests are home to as many as 200 million indigenous and tribal people worldwide. Protection of the world´s remaining ancient forests requires an immediate end to destructive activities. First and foremost, this means stopping the biggest threat to the remaining ancient forests: industrial logging.While most Americans oppose the destruction of the last ancient forests, we see little relationship between ourselves and this destruction. In fact, our personal and professional decisions, and the decisions of the businesses we work for or choose to patronize, will be the deciding factors in whether the Earth´s remaining ancient forests last beyond our lifetime.In Europe, Greenpeace launched an intensive campaign to stop corporate consumers from purchasing wood from Canada's ancient forests. Greenpeace blocked shipments of timber, challenged companies at their headquarters and raised public awareness about the devastation of ancient forests.As a result, major companies such as B&Q and Do It All, the two largest “do it yourself” chains in England, and Otto, the largest mail order company in the world, canceled their contracts with Canadian rainforest timber companies or decided to stop using ancient forest wood altogether.In the United States, the efforts of Greenpeace, Rainforest Action Network, National Resources Defense Council and other environmental groups resulted in many companies such as Kinko´s, 3M, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Levi-Strauss, Nike and others committing to stop buying ancient forest products.Unfortunately, the majority of American corporations, including The Home Depot, Proctor and Gamble, Times-Mirror and Hercules refuse to take this stand.The U.S. remains the largest single consumer of forest products worldwide, consuming approximately 9.5 billion board feet of lumber alone per year — enough wood to make a board one foot wide by one inch thick that would wrap around the world more than seven and a half times. If the Earth's last ancient forests are to be saved, U.S. companies must live up to their responsibility. It is now time for corporate consumers in the U.S. to join this trend and stop buying timber from ancient forests before these forests disappear forever.Through its consumption, the United States, which has already destroyed most of its own ancient forests, plays the biggest role in the destruction of ancient forests worldwide. Every day, somewhere in the United States marketplace products manufactured from old-growth trees are bought and sold in a wide assortment of forms that would shock the average consumer.Irreplaceable ancient forests are being destroyed to produce such disposable products as plywood, phone books, and toilet paper — and even toothpaste and shampoo. In almost all cases these products can be manufactured with environmentally appropriate alternatives.Consumers are rarely aware that the products they buy implicate them in the destruction of ancient forests. Worse yet, many companies actively seek to hide this fact. In addition, many companies do not take the time to understand the environmental and social consequences behind their procurement of forest products.As the world's largest consumer of forest products, the U.S. has the potential to have the most impact in choosing to protect the planet's remaining ancient forests. If all the members of the U.S. marketplace choose to seek non-wood and recycled sources where appropriate and buy from well-managed secondary forests instead of from sources that destroy ancient forests, there will be no incentive to continue destructive logging practices.The Last Temperate Ancient Rainforests In Jeopardy
Of the three major forest types — tropical, temperate, and boreal — temperate forests are the most threatened. Historically, these forests have been the most heavily disturbed, particularly ancient temperate rainforests. Today, ancient temperate rainforests comprise less than .1 percent of the Earth´s landmass. The largest unprotected temperate rainforest is found in British Columbia, Canada, where groups and individuals are struggling to prevent the clearcutting of the last pristine valleys.4 The United States is the single largest consumer of forest products cut from this region.Tracing The Chain Of Custody
This report provides concrete examples of the largely hidden chain of custody from forest to consumer, tracing the links of the destruction of one of the Earth's most threatened forests — Canada's Great Bear Rainforest — through processing, manufacturing, distribution and sale in the United States. Although this report focuses on the traffic of products originating from the Great Bear Rainforest, it provides an overview of what is happening on a wider scale to the Earth's last ancient forests.

Num. pages: 35