The parties to Resolute Forest Products, Inc. et al. v. Greenpeace International et al. and Resolute Forest Products, Inc. et al. v. Greenpeace Canada et al. have announced the conclusion of these long-running litigations. Please see the joint statement.
Arnaud Nourry, the CEO of Hachette Livre, released a fiery letter to the CEO of Resolute Forest Products, Richard Garneau, in response to a Greenpeace campaign to protect free speech and forests. Resolute has sued Greenpeace International, Greenpeace USA, and Greenpeace Canada in two multi-million dollar lawsuits, in an attempt to silence and destroy the more than 45 year old organization.
Greenpeace has called on the largest global publishers, who source paper from Resolute, to join us as allies and live up to their sustainability promises by demanding the logging company both protect the boreal forest and drop these lawsuits. Hachette Livre was the first publisher to show its leadership on this issue.
The letter referenced the importance of operating in line with the Forest Stewardship Council’s sustainability standards, and called Resolute’s legal tactics “excessive.”
Nourry writes, “At a time when the United States has decided to turn its back on climate change by reneging on its commitment to the Paris Accord, we believe we need more than ever independent NGOs such as Greenpeace. Without them, who will speak up for the environment in the future?”
“We applaud Hachette Livre for taking the first step to stand up for the forest and freedom of speech and for Arnaud Nourry’s leadership in understanding the high stakes of the threat to Greenpeace and civil society more broadly,” said Clement Senechal forest campaigner for Greenpeace France.
He continues, “we also call on Hachette Livre to continue to hold Resolute responsible for acting in accordance with the values mentioned in this letter: protection of the environment, the importance of free speech and the value of working with independent NGOs and evaluators. We also call on Hachette Livre to see that while retaining FSC certifications is a must, other controversial logging practices including destroying intact forests and harming threatened species habitat must also be resolved.”
Amy Moas, Ph.D. from Greenpeace USA, added that, “publishers have the unique ability to make a difference on this massive legal attack on environmental advocacy work as major buyers of Resolute’s paper and stakeholders in the global conversation about free speech. Like many publishers, Hachette Livre has a strong sustainability policy that Resolute does not meet, and we look forward to seeing how Resolute resolves this issue.”
Other major publishers, including Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, MacMillan, and Simon & Schuster need to move more quickly on this issue to regain the confidence of the half a million people around the world who have asked publishers to live up the their promises and ensure forests and free speech are not attacked on their watch.
ENDS
Notes to editors:
[1] Click here to read Hachette Livre CEO letter to Resolute Forest Products CEO, or copy the following URL to your browser: http://www.hachette.com/en/the-environment
[2] Click here to learn more about Resolute’s massive legal attack against Greenpeace, or copy the following URL to your browser: http://www.greenpeace.org/resolutelawsuits/
[3] Click here to learn more about Resolute’s controversial logging practices and how publishers are involved by accessing Greenpeace’s recent “Clearcutting Free Speech” report, or copy the following URL to your browser: https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/clearcutting-free-speech
