Get your own Free Home PageRainforest Action Network has launched a bold new campaign to end all logging of America's last ancient redwood forests by completely eliminating the market for the grand, endangered trees.
"If we don't buy it, they won't cut it" is the theme behind the old-growth redwood boycott campaign, launched February 10 with a star-studded press conference in Los Angeles and a full-page ad in the New York Times.
The press conference featured Hollywood megastar Steven Seagal, and Rainforest Action Network supporters Ed Asner, Grateful Dead bassist Bob Weir, Max Headroom star Matt Frewer, and Max Gail, best known as Sargent Wojohowicz from the sit-com Barney Miller. Speaking on behalf of the coalition behind the campaign were RAN's Randall Hayes, Greenpeace head Barbara Dudley, and Sierra Club's new president, Adam Werbach.
The New York Times advertisement urged readers "Don't buy old-growth redwood lumber," and featured a photograph of a pristine stand of redwoods over the headline: "Of all the uses of an ancient redwood, it still works best as a tree."
The ancient redwoods are the Southernmost extent of North America's temperate rainforest. Not long ago, this ecosystem blanketed the Pacific coast all the way from Alaska to California with the world's tallest, largest and most valuable trees. These cathedral-like forests have been made famous around the world on countless calendars, photographs and postcards and have become an indelible part of American culture.
Timber companies have been particularly ruthless in logging ancient redwoods. Ninety-six per cent of our ancient redwood forests have already been destroyed - yet, unbelievably, these ancient giants are still being logged.
Despite the arrests of thousands of citizens trying to save the last ancient redwoods, the government has proved itself incapable of protecting this priceless, irreplaceable part of our natural heritage.
The Headwaters Forest in Humboldt County is the largest unprotected ancient redwood forest in the world, and is home to the marbled murrelet, coho salmon, and other endangered species. Due to lax environmental laws, the two-thousand year-old trees of Headwaters are in danger of being cut down by Pacific Lumber.
At the Los Angeles press conference, Matt Frewer stated: "We've been sold a bill of goods that hands the Headwaters Forest over to corporate interests. Trees like the redwoods are part of our natural heritage."
To rescue the last remaining unprotected redwoods from the chainsaw, Rainforest Action Network is calling on lumberyards, contractors, architects, interior designers, as well as other building professionals and concerned citizens to pledge not to buy old-growth redwood products.
Old-growth lumber is easy to identify. It is a higher quality of wood than second or third growth products, and lumber yards label it "clear," since it does not have knots.
As the ancient redwoods disappear, the supply of old-growth wood dries up. Old-growth wood is a finite resource, almost by definition a dying market -- and old-growth redwood, in particular, is getting harder to find.
Rainforest Action Network has drawn a line in the sand with the consumption of old-growth redwood. Not one more hottub or window frame should ever be made from these ancient trees again. And that is just the first step. The ancient redwoods will be a springboard into a campaign to stop all industrial use of all old-growth or primary forest once and for all.
Rainforest Action Network
www.ran.org
Get your own Free Home Page