The report details how thousand-year-old trees end up in
products used by such companies as Hercules (for toothpaste),
Procter and Gamble (for toilet paper), newspapers (newsprint for
The Los Angeles Times) and The Home Depot (as lumber and
moldings).
More than 80 percent of the Earth’s original ancient forests
have been destroyed or degraded. The United States already has
devastated more than 90 percent of its ancient forests and is now
the largest importer of forest products from around the world.
Temperate rainforests are one of the most endangered ecosystems in
the world, and industrial logging is its greatest threat.
As The Home Depot shareholders started their meeting this
morning, they were confronted with graphic, poster-sized pictures
of the company’s logo in a rainforest clearcut to underscore its
appearance in the Chain report. The shareholders will vote on a
resolution today that outlines the steps The Home Depot needs to
take to stop selling ancient forest wood.
“This clearcut is where one of the Earth’s last remaining
temperate rainforests once stood, until one of The Home Depot’s
suppliers, Interfor (a Canadian logging company), went to work with
its chainsaws and logging trucks,” said Ilyse Hogue, Greenpeace
Forest Specialist. Yesterday, Greenpeace activists installed a
10,000-square foot logo of The Home Depot in a clear-cut area of
the Great Bear Rainforest in Canada.
“An area the size of the Home Depot logo we installed is forever
lost every five seconds somewhere in the world,” Hogue said.
“Greenpeace is calling on the shareholders to seize this
opportunity to vote to end the destruction of the world’s few
remaining ancient forests.”
“Greenpeace branded the scarred earth in North America’s last
temperate rainforest — the Great Bear Rainforest of British
Columbia — with The Home Depot logo to clearly label the
devastation,” said Ilyse Hogue, Greenpeace Forest Issues
Specialist. “It’s important for the shareholders to actually see
the direct connection between the company’s business practices and
the devastation of this critical global resource.”
