AbitibiBowater Leaps Ahead of Competitors on Southern Forest Conservation; Lags Further Behind
Asheville, NC – On February 29, 2008, Dogwood Alliance released a report, “Southern Forests & Bowater, Inc.: Progress Report July 2006 – July 2007,” detailing the leap forward Bowater (now AbitibiBowater) made in honoring its commitment to improve forestry practices in the Southern US and in protecting forests of ecological significance on the Cumberland Plateau of Eastern Kentucky, Central Tennessee and Northern Alabama. The report does not address concerns with AbitibiBowater’s forest practices in the Canadian Boreal forest.
In June 2005, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed between Dogwood Alliance, NRDC and Greenville, SC based Bowater, Inc. which set the standard for improved management of the Southern United States working forest landscape. Though in October of 2007, Bowater merged with Abitibi Consolidated to become AbitibiBowater, the terms of the MOU remain in effect for all of the AbitibiBowater mills in the US formerly owned by Bowater. The report details progress the company made over the second year of implementing the commitments contained in the MOU.
“AbitibiBowater has demonstrated that working together, we can end the conversion of natural forests to plantations and protect special places in the largest paper producing region in the world,” said Danna Smith, Policy Director for Dogwood Alliance. “While AbitibiBowater has taken a leap forward, the largest paper producer in the region, , continues to cling to out-dated practices that are destroying some of North America’s most unique forests in the Cumberland Plateau and Southern Swampland regions of the Southern US.”
Highlights from the progress report include:
‘s indiscriminate use of large quantities of wood for its paper mills continues to have significant negative impacts on forests of high conservation value in the Southern US, including in the Cumberland Plateau and the wetland forests of the Mid-Atlantic Coastal region. IP has been a leading force behind the conversion of millions of acres of natural forests and wetlands in the South to sterile pine plantations.
“As others in the paper industry embrace the need for change and make progress, continues to make excuses,” said Smith. “Dogwood Alliance is escalating its efforts to pressure the company to take meaningful action to protect Southern forests and communities.”
In addition to working with IP’s largest customers in the office supply sector like Staples and Office Depot, Dogwood Alliance recently launched an effort targeting IP’s large corporate consumers of paper packaging such as Yum! Brand Foods (parent company of KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and more) and McDonald’s of the fast food sector and Procter & Gamble and Unilever in the health and beauty sector to convince them to hold IP to a high environmental standard or find alternative, more environmentally progressive paper suppliers.
To read and download the full report, visit: http://www.dogwoodalliance.org/images/pdfs/bowaterprogressreport2007.pdf
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Dogwood Alliance is the only organization in the Southern United States holding corporations accountable for the impact of their industrial forestry practices on our forests and communities. In addition to holding the office supply industry accountable to their environmental commitments, Dogwood Alliance is working to stop the destructive practices of the paper packaging sector. Visit www.dogwoodalliance.org for more information.
Our friends at the Gracey Foundation in Missouri need your help…
The Maple Woods nature preserve in Clay County Missouri (Northeast of Kansas City) is under heavy development pressure and land adjoining it is currently up for sale. The suburban preserve is filled with Old Growth Oak, Maple and Mockernut Hickory and the seven acre tract for sale next to the preserve are up for sale.
Dogwood Alliance supporter Greg Montgomery’s daughters Heather aged 12 and Zoe aged 9 came up with the brilliant idea of buying the land and donating it to the preserve, helping to protect the park and make it complete.
Zoe says “If we don’t do something they will knock down all those trees too, and it’s just wrong.”
For more information and to learn how you can help, visit The Gracey Foundation.
To read a story in the Kansas City Star about the property, visit here.
A Thank you video, check it out.
Ad in USA Today Gives The Green Skinny On Office Supply Companies…
These days when every major corporation claims to be environmentally responsible, with office supply companies we can tell you who’s really green and who is just greenwashing.
For Immediate Release: February 6, 2008 Contact: Scot Quaranda, Dogwood Alliance, ph: 828.251.2525 x18 World Class Southeastern Coastal Forests Swallowed Up by and Fast Food Companies Dogwood Alliance and Local Partners Release Report Highlighting Natural Beauty, Legacy of Destruction, and Naming Key Parties to Continuing Destruction; Thousands Show Support from the Region Asheville, NC – Earlier today, local community organizations and university students on the Virginia and North Carolina coast joined regional conservation organization, Dogwood Alliance, to release “Southeastern Swamplands and Paper Packaging,” a report on how a world class biological hotspot of diversity that includes wetland forests, is being destroyed by to make throw away packaging for large fast food corporations. In addition to the report, activists held press conferences in Norfolk, VA and Wilmington, NC and presented petitions signed by thousands of citizens calling for protection of the region’s forests. “We are here today to shine a bright spotlight on the incredibly diverse forests of the Southeastern swampland and call on and their big customers to stop the needless destruction of our forests,” said Ruth Morrison, Campaign Organizer for Dogwood Alliance in Wilmington, NC. “The forests of coastal Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia like the Green Swamp in North Carolina and the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia should not be chopped down, chipped up, and turned into paper packaging for fast food companies like KFC, Taco Bell and McDonalds.” The Southern Swampland region stretching from the Southeast Virginia coast across the Carolinas to the Georgia coast is an area of amazing natural beauty and unique biological diversity. It is home to unheralded aquatic and plant diversity including such species as the Venus flytrap and longleaf pine trees. Examples of wild natural places in the region that signify what the forests of the region could and should look like include the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge in Virginia and North Carolina and the Croatan National Forest in North Carolina. Southeastern coastal forests are home to incredible biological diversity, including: * Green Swamp Region is a world-wide hotspot for endangered and rare species, including carnivorous plants like the Venus flytrap and Pitcher plant * The sourcing area for the Riegelwood mill includes substantial areas of important freshwater wetlands (4,440,712 ac), home of many species found nowhere else on the planet, including the Waccamaw Killifish, Waccamaw Darter and the Fatmucket Mussel. * Home of rare Remnant Long-leaf Pine Savannahs reduced to less that 2% of their historic range across the uplands of the region. In Virginia the last long leaf stands are hand pollinated in an effort to restore this ecological community in the Zuni Pine Barrens. * The sourcing area for the Franklin mill contains a large area of fresh water wetlands (5,671,194 ac) according to the National Wetlands Inventory, and is home to a diverse array of aquatic species including the white-cedar hairstreak butterfly, greater siren salamander, and the canebrake rattlesnake. “Every time I visit The Green Swamp, I am reminded of how incredible this region once was and what it can be again,” said Juanita Roushdy, President of Cape Fear Audubon Society, and a speaker at the Wilmington, NC event. “Today we are coming together to call for greater protection of these amazing forests and an end to the long legacy of unsustainable forestry practices in the region.” This unique region of the world has been under assault for generations by the pulp and paper industry led by . In addition to large-scale clearcutting, the swamps have been ditched and drained for decades to allow the planting of sterile, monoculture plantations to be planted in place of the native forests. Where once the incredibly unique and diverse longleaf pine – wire grass ecosystems stretched as far as the eye could see the region is now dominated by intensively managed loblolly pine plantations. According to the report, paper packaging is the number one products being produced by in this region. Fast food companies led by Yum! Brand Foods (parent company of KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and more) and McDonalds with their overly consumptive and wasteful use of paper packaging are supporting the destruction of Southern forests with their packaging choices. “Simple choices and creative solutions can reduce the excess and destruction while still allowing us all to enjoy the level of convenience we have come to expect,” said Scot Quaranda, Campaign Director for Dogwood Alliance. “Using less packaging, using more recycled materials, and embracing sustainable sourcing choices all add up to healthy Southern forests and thriving local communities.” # # # To read and download the full report click here. Dogwood Alliance is the only organization in the Southern United States holding corporations accountable for the impact of their industrial forestry practices on our forests and communities. In addition to holding the office supply industry accountable to their environmental commitments, Dogwood Alliance is working to stop the destructive practices of the paper packaging sector. Visit www.dogwoodalliance.org for more information.
Saturday afternoon, a group of 30 campus and community Dogwood Alliance volunteers gathered at the Nature Conservancy’s Green Swamp Preserve in Brunswick County for a tour of the amazing forests we’re working to protect. Students, grandparents and children alike came to check out the 15,
907 acres of awesome long leaf pine savanna and all the neat critters and carnivorous plants that live there.
Joe Abbate of Cape Fear River Watch (www.cfrw.us), a long leaf pines expert and riveting bird enthusiast joined our group to give us the low down of just how awesome long leaf pine savannas really are. Also with us was Mark Todd of the North American Sarracenia Conservancy (http://www.nasarracenia.org/). (Sarracenia is the fancy name for a pitcher plant.) While this isn’t the best time of year to find them, Mark was able to hunt down a few choice carnivorous plants. He even pulled some of the dried ones apart so we could see the dead bugs inside- definitely a highlight for the youngest among us.
After touring the beauty that our forests have to offer, we drove back towards Wilmington and stopped at a pine plantation to get a taste for what industrial logging is really like. There Mark gave us the run down on ditching and draining, herbicides and all the other things that make pine plantations problematic. We checked out some of the pine plots and then went to a recent clearcut. The silence seemed to be the first thing everyone noticed. After some exploring we picked a spot and took this awesome picture- soon to be in a Yum! Brands inbox- as well as some video for our documentary project.
To learn more about the Green Swamp Preserve or how to get there, check out: http://www.nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/states/northcarolina/preserves/art5606.html
How do go from being a small team of excited forest crusaders steadily gathering one pledge after the next to being a huge team of committed activists working with stealth, precision, and mass impact garnering the support of thousands here in Wilmington?
The answer, as we proved it this week here in Wilmington was to kick it up a notch with a kick-butt Kick Off Meeting! (Bruce Lee would be proud of us and all our kicks, wouldn’t he?) On Wednesday night, over 55 people crowded into our meeting,
bringing with them a whole host of awesome ideas for how we can really amp up the pressure on Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut to quit using our amazing forests in North Carolina for their disposable packaging. To think – these companies are currently sitting comfortably and content with the destruction they’re causing in our communities just to make more trash for their fast food! Not for long, though, eh? Though they might think they’re safe in their ivory tower of paper-packaging madness, they’re soon to hear from us.
Coming out of our Grassroots Pressure (aka – gROOTS!), Community Outreach, and Media Visibility teams will be a whole chorus of support for sustainable forestry, sane reductions in packaging, and the no-brainer switch to post-consumer recycled content.
Check out the photos too – I think you can even see someone doing a roundhouse kick in the back of the room!
What an incredible Kick-Off Meeting we had here in Norfolk.
Annie and I are thrilled, excited, and inspired by the student leaders of the Norfolk Chapter of Dogwood Alliance. Forty-five people turned out to learn more about the campaign and how to get involved. Our guest speaker, Professor Sussman of Old Dominion University did a great job emphasizing why it is SO important for people to become active and enable change in our world, whether it be in our electoral politics, or pressuring fast-food companies to stop supporting the clear-cutting of our forests for hamburger wrappers and coke cups. We broke up into three groups so that folks would focus, strategize and plan how we can make the biggest impact in Norfolk- and the juices were flowing! So many ideas to engage as many people as possible and make a huge splash. There is no doubt in our minds that the passion and drive to protect our forests will continue on here in Virginia.
Go Team!
Yesterday on the campus of Old Dominion University in Norfolk Virginia …
Yesterday on the campus of Old Dominion University in Norfolk Virginia, Dogwood Alliance along with hundreds of concerned supporters released the Southeastern Swamplands and Paper Packaging Report detailing the amazing bioloigcal richness of the coastal forests of the Mid-Atlantic region and how the business-usual-logging practices of the old-school pulp and paper companies negatively impact the forests of the region. Today in Wilmington, North Carolina a second rally will release the report to the southeastern coast of North Carolina, while the report is released nationally from Dogwood Alliance’s Asheville, North Carolina office.
Read about the the Norfolk rally a terrific kick-off for the next phase of our Packaging Campaign! Thanks to our team in Virginia and to the students and other supporters for making their voices heard…
An
Report released highlighting the connections between large corporate customers of paper packaging produced from the Middle Atlantic Coastal Forests and the negative impact of business-as-usual forestry on the amazing biolgoical diversity of the region.
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