Greenpeace and other environmental groups in 1992 secured a
promise from Home Depot to stop selling products derived from the
destruction of the world’s last ancient forests. Greenpeace is now
calling upon Home Depot to make good on its promise and cancel its
contracts with the logging companies destroying the Great Bear
Rainforest.
The Great Bear Rainforest, part of an ecosystem that used to
include Oregon, is North America’s largest intact coastal temperate
rain forest. It is home to 1,000-year-old cedar trees, rare species
of bear and rivers that still teem with salmon. It enjoys only weak
environmental protection, and is being systematically logged by
three timber companies: International Forest Products (Interfor)
Western Forest Products (Domain) and West Fraser Timber Co.
“More than half the wood cut in British Columbia is exported to
the United States, and much of it is used to produce items such as
telephone books, toilet paper, plywood and two-by-four studs that
could just as easily be made from wood from well-managed
second-growth forests,” Greenpeace Forest Issues Specialist Mathew
Jacobson said. Ancient forest wood on sale at Home Depot includes
interior trim and mouldings milled by Sauder, a transnational
affiliate of Interfor, for sale in the U.S.
“Greenpeace believes that American consumers would not buy these
products if they knew that habitat for wild salmon and grizzly
bears was being destroyed to make them,” said Jacobson. “Once this
forest is gone, it’s gone forever.”
Greenpeace is the leading independent organization that uses
peaceful and creative activism to protect the global
enviroment.
