About the campaign
Rainforest Action Network's Old Growth Campaign works to protect forests, promote sustainable and democratic economies, and protect indigenous rights by transforming the global logging industry. RAN is partnering with green-builders, community activists, indigenous communities, workers, logging communities and allied organizations to pressure Weyerhaeuser, the world's largest lumber company, to:
- adopt ecologically sustainable logging practices, and
- obtain community consent before logging in or buying wood from the traditional territory of indigenous people.
For generations, companies like Weyerhaeuser have destroyed the lands and cultural traditions of native peoples in Canada. Often, logging companies move into a community and fundamentally alter its economy by employing so many people that life in the community revolves around logging. The problem is that once a forest is clear-cut, the company usually packs up and leaves, taking its jobs with it. Meanwhile, the forest that once supported the community is destroyed.
We can’t afford to sit back and watch Weyerhaeuser destroy our last old growth forests. These forests are the lungs of our planet and home to some of the oldest and most beautiful living ecosystems, many of which have existed for tens of millions of years. Yet, from British Columbia to the Amazon, we are losing 100 acres of forest per minute. With 80 percent of our planet’s old growth forests already gone, time is running out.
Taking action
Support Grassy Narrows
Visit www.freegrassy.org, sign the petition in support of Grassy Narrows, and register to receive email updates from RAN.
Host a movie night!
Contact annie@ran.org and request a copy of "As Long as the Rivers Flow: The Grassy Narrows Blockade Story." Get a group together to view the movie and learn about Canadian indigenous struggles to stop destructive logging in their traditional territories.
Target Weyerhaeuser’s U.S. based lumber stores
Weyerhaeuser sells a product (called Timberstrand or Trus Joist) that is made from wood taken from the Grassy Narrows First Nation traditional territory in northwestern Ontario.
Tell local lumber retailers to stop selling these products and to tell Weyerhaeuser to stop taking wood from Grassy Narrows territory without the community's consent.
Contact annie@ran.org, and we will find the Timberstrand or Trus Joist retailer nearest you.
Join the Smart Paper Project
Stop the use of endangered forest products at your school or in your community by passing an endangered forest policy. Urge your school to:
- re-use more paper when possible;
- print on both sides of paper;
- switch to at least 80 percent post-consumer waste recycled or tree-free paper;
- commit to never buy products from destructive companies like Sierra Pacific and Weyerhaeuser.
Visit ran.org/what_we_do/old_growth/smartpaper/ to learn more about this project, or contact annie@ran.org to be sent more information.
Target Weyerhaeuser’s home-building companies
Weyerhaeuser is an enormous company. It runs five smaller home-building companies around the U.S. that construct new homes using wood clear-cut from indigenous territory in Canada. These smaller companies are:
- Quadrant Homes in the Puget Sound Region of Washington State
- Pardee Homes in Southern California and Nevada
- Maracay Homes in Phoenix, Arizona
- Trendmaker Homes in Houston, Texas
- Winchester Homes in Maryland and Virginia
If you live in or near any of the above regions, contact annie@ran.org to get involved with RAN’s organizing campaign to target these home-builders.