What happened: Boise announced yesterday that it “wishes to honor the request of Chief Fobister to discontinue sourcing fiber from the Traditional Use Area of Grassy Narrows”. Check out their letter here: boises-letter.pdf AbitibiBowater, the world’s largest paper company, clear-cuts trees from Grassy Narrow’s traditional territory in northwestern Ontario, and sells pulp from these trees to Boise. Boise makes paper from this pulp and sells a huge percentage of it to OfficeMax in the United States and Grand & Toy in Canada.
What this means: Boise’s announcement that they will stop purchasing pulp that comes from Grassy Narrows means that our efforts to recruit support from OfficeMax and Grand & Toy worked! Congratulations and thank you to everyone who participated in the international day of action at OfficeMax and Grand & Toy on January 30th (just a few weeks ago!)
What’s next? Grassy Narrows is still demanding a moratorium of all industrial activity on their traditional territory (including logging), Our primary concern right now is to push Weyerhaeuser and AbitibiBowater to follow Boise’s lead.
We want to hear from you! Now is a great time to weigh in with great ideas. A moratorium in Grassy Narrows is in our sights and creative thinking and clever ideas are definitely encouraged during this critical moment!
Thank You Thank You to everyone who has supported the Old Growth campaign! I am so happy to share the news of this milestone, and I hope that we can celebrate an even bigger victory in the near future.
– Annie