Rainforest Action Network

As company's AGM approaches, RAN increases pressure on Weyerhaeuser to follow Boise Inc.'s lead

SAN FRANCISCO - Rainforest Action Network (RAN) issued a letter to Weyerhaeuser CEO Steve Rogel today calling on him to follow the lead of Boise Inc. and suspend his company's contract to buy wood from the traditional territory of the Grassy Narrows First Nation in northwest Ontario. In February, Boise Inc. notified logging company AbitibiBowater that it would cease purchasing wood fiber from Grassy Narrows until the community's consent could be obtained.

The Canadian Parliament voted this week to endorse the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which prohibits industrial activity on Indigenous lands without the native communities' free, prior and informed consent. Grassy Narrows community members have been peacefully protesting clear-cut logging on their land since 2002; last fall, the province of Ontario appointed former Canadian Supreme Court Justice Frank Iacobucci to negotiate an end to the dispute. Since then, community members allege that clear-cut logging on their traditional territory has intensified."Both Boise and the Canadian Parliament seem to recognize that logging in the face of unanimous community opposition is wrong," said Brant Olson, director of RAN's Old Growth Campaign. "Steve Rogel has not only failed to acknowledge the human and environmental toll of his company's presence in Grassy Narrows, he's now profiting from ramped up logging there - likely because he knows that the era of unwanted clear-cut logging on Indigenous lands in Canada is coming to an end."In a 2007 report, Amnesty International concluded that clear-cut logging within Grassy Narrows' traditional territory without the First Nation's consent constitutes human rights violations against the Grassy Narrows people because the community has constitutional and treaty rights to preserve its territory for traditional uses such as hunting and trapping.RAN has been collaborating since 2004 with Grassy Narrows, which in January 2007 called for a moratorium on all industrial uses of its territory that occur without its free, prior and informed consent. RAN has mounted markets pressure against Boise and Weyerhaeuser, demanding that the companies respect Grassy Narrows' land rights.