Grassroots Groups Launch Boise Green Ribbon Campaign Message to Boise: Keep Your Promise; Don't Log Old Growth

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For Immediate Release

Grassroots Groups Launch Boise Green Ribbon Campaign Message to Boise: Keep Your Promise; Don't Log Old Growth

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, Sep. 13 -/E-Wire/-- This past weekend grassroots groups began tying giant green ribbons on trees in logging communities and major cities throughout the Pacific Northwest to remind timber giant Boise Cascade to keep its widely publicized 2003 promise not to harvest from old-growth forests in the United States. The Boise Green Ribbon Campaign was sparked by separate lawsuits involving Boise over hotly contested U.S. Forest Service "fire sales" in the Metolius Watershed in Oregon's Deschute National Forest and the Eagle Old Growth Reserve in Washington's Wenatchee National Forest.

Green ribbons first appeared over the weekend on endangered old-growth trees marked for logging by Boise and are now showing up in Leavenworth, Wenatchee and Seattle in Washington, and Sisters, Bend and Portland in Oregon, as well as in Boise, Idaho, where the company is headquartered. Members of Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project and Leavenworth Audubon Adopt-a-Forest spearheading the green ribbon campaign are calling on Boise to back off both sales and reconfirm its commitment to keep out of old growth.

In a September 7, 2005, meeting with Boise CEO Tom Stevens at Rainforest Action Network's San Francisco offices, a good-faith agreement was reached to enter into a cooperative science-based assessment process to create greater consensus on region-appropriate definitions of old-growth, an effort groups hope can prevent future clashes. The meeting included representatives from the Northwest Forest Campaign and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The emergency meeting followed an August 31 letter to Mr. Stephens expressing broad-based opposition to Boise's decision log in the Wenatchee and Deschutes National Forests by citizen groups including American Lands Alliance, BARK, Dogwood Alliance, Environmental Protection Information Center, Free the Planet, Greenpeace Canada, Greenpeace USA, Klamath Forest Alliance, Leavenworth, Audubon Adopt-a-Forest, National Forest Protection Alliance, Natural Resources, Defense Council, Olympia Rainforest Coalition, Rainforest Action Network, SEAC, Siskiyou Project and The Lands Council.

On September 3, 2003, Boise released "Boise and the Environment," a policy promising, "Effective in 2004, Boise will no longer harvest timber from old-growth forests in the United States." The Wall Street Journal reported the news with the headline reading "Boise Cascade Turns Green." An original PDF copy of the policy can be downloaded at RAN.org/Boise.

Supporting Statements

"We are hopeful that the new Boise will not return to its old ways," said Brant Olson, director of the Old Growth Campaign at Rainforest Action Network. "With less than 4 percent of America's original forests still standing, the Pacific Northwest is ground zero for old growth protection. If Boise proceeds to log in areas designated as Late-Successional by the U.S. Forest Service, Rainforest Action Network and our allies will consider it a direct violation of its public promise not to log old growth in the United States."

"Trusting the logging industry to protect old growth forests is like expecting the Bush administration to confront global warming," said Pat Rasmussen of Leavenworth Audubon Adopt-a-Forest. "Until recently, the Forest Service protected Ponderosa pines over 21 inches in diameter. Thanks to misleading misnomers like the Bush administration's so-called Healthy Forest Initiative, companies like Boise are being allowed to destroy public land for private profits. We're tying green ribbons on trees everywhere to remind Boise that they made a promise to protect old growth, and we expect them to keep it."

The Natural Resources Defense Council is a national, nonprofit organization of scientists, lawyers and environmental specialists dedicated to protecting public health and the environment. Founded in 1970, NRDC has more than 1.2 million members and online activists nationwide, served from offices in New York, Washington, Los Angeles and San Francisco. For more information, please visit NRDC.org.

Thirteen conservation groups have formed the Northwest Forest Campaign to engage the public on the issue of old-growth logging and appeal to policy makers to protect mature and old growth forests on federal public lands in western Washington and Oregon. We work with scientists to develop alternatives to current logging practices, with rural communities to re-orient the funding of land management agencies, and with members of Congress to ensure the protection of our ancient forests, once and for all. The campaign works to protect the last of the region's ancient forests for wildlife, clean water and future generations. For more information, please visit NWOldGrowth.org.

Rainforest Action Network campaigns for the forests, their inhabitants and the natural systems that sustain life by transforming the global marketplace through education, grassroots organizing and non-violent direct action. For more information, please visit RAN.org

RainForest Action Network

Brianna Cayo-Cotter, Rainforest Action Network, (415) 398-4404 x357, [REDACTED-EMAIL]

http://NWOldGrowth.org

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