• Ensuring that FSC's regional standards for the management of commercial forest land are environmentally rigorous;
• Urging commercial and private forest owners to engage in the FSC-certification process, improve their practices, and become certified; and
• Securing commitments from large companies, such as wood retailer Home Depot and homebuilder Kaufman & Broad, to eliminate their use of wood from endangered and old growth forests, and to purchase FSC-certified wood instead.

The FSC standards and procedures are the toughest standard for commercial forestry and the most credible in the marketplace. The FSC offers an environmentally credible alternative to the less rigorous American Forest and Paper Association's "Sustainable Forestry Initiative." We encourage all private forest landowners to meet and exceed the standards of the FSC and become certified in accordance with its standards. Together with many other environmental groups, we will continue to promote the FSC system to landowners and to consumers within the marketplace.

CONTACTS:
California Trout, Mark Bergstrom, 415-392-8887
Ecotrust, Spencer Beebe, 503-227-6225
Greenpeace, Mike Roselle, 202-246-0229
National Wildlife Federation, Eric Palola, 802-229-0650 x309
Natural Resources Defense Council, Sami Yassa, 415-777-0220
Trout Unlimited, Charles Gauvin, 510-528-4772
The Wilderness Society, Spencer Phillips, 802-586-9910
World Wildlife Fund, Nick Brown, 202-778-9572; cell 202-302-0492

• "This is how private 'green-label' certification works. You be the judge.
• The label is paid for by the timber company.
• The organization that "awards" it, the Forest Stewardship Council, is heavily influenced by the timber industry (almost half its members are timber companies and foresters), which has succeeded in lowering certification standards to permit clearcutting, old-growth logging, and the use of toxic herbicides, among other unsustainable logging practices.
• To get certified, all the logging company has to do is pony up the money and promise that they will phase out these damaging practices someday. The evaluation process is secret, and the public has no say in how the timber company is impacting public trust resources.
• The criteria used and the financial relationship between the timber company, the FSC, and its member groups are tightly kept secrets.
• The certifiers issue a "summary" document for public consumption, which provides no data to support their claim of "sustainable" logging. The logging company can now charge you more for the wood. The FSC's loose guidelines and secret process have been sharply criticized by many, including Sierra Club Canada."

Talking Points plus elaboration:

1. The Forest Stewardship Council (the certifying body) is heavily influenced by the timber industry. Elaboration: Of the FSC's 443 members, 201 are timber companies or foresters. As a result of timber industry influence, the FSC has failed to adopt guidelines that actually promote sustainability. For example, Big Creek Lumber of Santa Cruz, CA, has effectively blocked the adoption of regional guidelines for the Coast Redwood forest that would prohibit old-growth logging--with less than 3% left, and species that rely on old-growth habitat, such as the Marbled Murrelet and Northern Spotted Owl, facing imminent extinction.
2. FSC guidelines permit clearcutting, old growth logging, the use of toxic herbicides, among other extremely harmful logging practices. Elaboration: In addition, certified timber companies may log without regard to the state of the watershed: no cumulative impacts assessment or watershed assessment is required, no sustained-yield plan needs to be in place, nor fish and wildlife surveys. (Given point 1, the influence of the timber industry, none of this should be too surprising.)
3. Certification is "awarded" on the mere promise by the logging company that they will phase out these unsustainable forest practices someday. Elaboration: Inexplicably, the certifiers give the Gap Fishers till the end of calendar year 2001 to justify their 40 million boardfoot annual cut with timber inventory data. That's right, page 25 of "SCS Public Summary Certification Report" states that the Fishers do not have the inventory data to justify their program of 40 Million boardfeet per year--which they have been implementing since they took ownership in July 98. The certifiers give them till the end of 2001 to have this inventory data complete and to adjust their level of cut accordingly. They say that they expect this to be a downward adjustment. Meanwhile, they can and are logging at this unsustainable rate and calling it sustainable--stamping the wood "certified."
   
   When it comes to toxic herbicides, including Garlon, known to be toxic to endangered salmonids, the certifiers give the Gap Fishers four years to REDUCE their use by 60%. The summary document vaguely states that the Gap Fishers are required to stop using herbicides entirely "over the long run." Further, the certifiers do not require the most basic protective measures to be in place until years down the road: for example, fish and wildlife surveys are not required for 2 years and a sustained-yield plan is not required for 2.5 years. Meanwhile, the Fishers can and are continuing their damaging logging practices--clearcutting, old-growth logging, herbicide application, high-grading, etc. --calling it sustainable and stamping the wood "certified."
   
   By the time the Fishers are required to make good on their promises, the last pockets of viable forest habitat, and the endangered species hanging on by a thread there, will be gone--they are taking this forest right now. This is a matter of public record. Local watershed groups, members of the Redwood Coast Watersheds Alliance, read and recon Fisher timber harvest plans--public documents, which reveal these facts.
   
   Detailed elaboration: The Fishers' unsustainable logging practices include clearcutting (80% of their 200+ plans contain some form of clearcutting), old-growth logging, high-grading (taking 25% of their annual cut from 7% of their holdings, where the last big trees--the last viable forest habitat on these holdings--is found), herbicide application, exorbitant road construction (for all those lucrative subdivisions), and overlogging (40 million boardfeet annually). This information is all a matter of public record. The Fishers' inventory is extremely thin--they admit to less than 10,000 boardfeet/acre (local environmentalists believe this figure is closer to 5000). A healthy commercial forest contains 40,000 bf/acre, an ancient forest, 400,000. Former owner Louisiana-Pacific's Sustained Yield Plan reveals that 97% of Fisher holdings is in average stands of very young, small trees, 1-21 inches in diameter, and that the endangered Coho salmon have disappeared in 90% of the streams. Other endangered species, such as Marbled Murrelets (only FOUR detections in the whole of Mendocino County, because their old-growth habitat has been devastated by overlogging), are also facing extinction. This information is all a matter of public record.
   
   It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that this vastly depleted forestland can no longer be logged sustainably, let alone withstand the Fishers' assault.
4. The public is completely shut out from the certification process--we have no rights whatsoever in assessing the impacts that the timber company is having on our public trust resources. The certifiers, who are paid by the timber company, decide that for us. The certifiers have a vested interest in promoting certification: They cannot be impartial with so much self-interest at stake.
   
   Elaboration: This private certification process, in which the public has absolutely no rights, is no less a subversion of the democratic, public process than the WTO. Private, i.e., corporate, control of public policy and public trust resources is the corporate global economic agendum, as manifested in NAFTA, the WTO, FTAA, World Bank, IMF, etc--and the FSC and private certification plays right into this scenario. In the public process, public oversight is built into environmental laws, such as NEQA (National Environmental Quality Act) and CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act). We have strong environmental laws in place, such as the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act. They are not being enforced because corporations have bought our politicians, just like they've bought the FSC.
   
   The solution is NOT TO ABANDON THE PUBLIC PROCESS FOR A PRIVATE ONE. The solution is to reclaim our government, reform campaign financing, outlaw corporate lobbying, and demand enforcement of environmental law!!!
5. The certification process is secret, opaque--the criteria used, the cost of the assessment, the financial relationships between the applicant, the FSC and its member groups are tightly kept secrets. Without complete transparency, especially with regard to the money that has changed hands, private certification is meaningless. We can win in an open and transparent process. We cannot win in backroom deals.
   
   Elaboration: If you follow the money you will see that the Fishers are big funders of the Natural Resources Defense Council (Bob Fishers sits on their Board), which helped to create the FSC and is one of its mainstays. We know that the NRDC's affiliations with corporations and their track record of compromise (supporting NAFTA, Big Oil in Equador, de-regulation of energy) have made their name anathema to grassroots activists.
6. We are not alone in our distrust and criticism of the FSC and private certification. Refer to the following URLs of SIERRA CLUB CANADA press releases: One expressing their SERIOUS DOUBTS about FSC certification, and the other, a BLISTERING ATTACK of Scientific Certification Systems for certifying J.D. Irving, Ltd, liquidation loggers whose methods are very similar to the Gap Fishers.
   
   Scientific Certification Systems is the FSC for-profit company that certified the Gap Fishers. http://www.sierraclub.ca/national/media/fsc-cert-concerns-00-01-21.html
   http://www.sierraclub.ca/national/media/appeal-jdi-se98.htm

Forest Defenders, one disturbing thing is the number of big environmental organizations that have bought into this subversion of public process and the big lie of private "green-label" certification. There are a number of reasons for this:

1. The fat-cat non-profits already in bed with Big Money, like the NRDC and WWF, are notorious for environmental compromises (NAFTA, Big Oil in Equador, nuclear bail out/energy deregulation, acceptable kill levels for dolphins and other species, etc.). They helped create the FSC's timber-friendly "green label" and are naturally going to support it.
2. Aspiring fat-cat non-profits, like Greenpeace. These non-profits start out small and good, but become big and unfocussed. They insist on butting into situations about which they are clueless. They should be SUPPORTING grassroots activists in the field, who are getting the real work done, who know the score, but instead they have lunch in D.C. with the fat-cat enviros and their corporate patrons, and wind up espousing those views. How else can you explain this remark by Mike Roselle of Greenpeace, Washington, D.C., who endorses Fisher logging and writes off the possibility of a wildlife preserve, without ever having spoken with us; furthermore he regurgitates timber industry propaganda directly from the mouths of the Fishers: "They've reduced the harvest level and rejected clearcut forestry...It's still going to be a working forest. I would have a preferred a national park and to restore it to its natural state, but that was never an option here." I guess he never read the L-P SYP or the Fishers' 200+ THPs like we have. I guess he never heard of the Gap Boycott, either. Get a clue, Mike.
3. The groups that have some integrity, like American Lands Alliance, obviously haven't thought about it very deeply (they are primarily involved in public forest protection)--however, it's ironic that ALA was out in force at the WTO Showdown in Seattle, but is blind to the parallels between the WTO and the FSC. There may be a little Gore-vs.-Bush syndrome here (the lesser of two evils--it isn't!); maybe it's the end-justifies-the-means syndrome (they have some absurd rationale that if they certify liquidation loggers now, they'll somehow save the forest in the end). People are so disenchanted by the failure of government to protect public trust resources that they are foolishly turning anywhere--in this case to the private sector, where susceptibility to corporate corruption is even more acute; and that's exactly what we're witnessing: The FSC is dominated by timber interests and is certifying liquidation loggers in a process that subverts environmental law and the public trust.
4. Finally, there are non-profits like Rainforest Action Network. Randy Hayes, founder and President of RAN, made the following pronouncement at a recent meeting that I attended: "FSC certification is worthless!" Here, here. Yet when I visited the FSC web site, Rainforest Action Network was listed as a member group, lending credibility to the FSC. Activists have come up to me for an explanation of this, and I just tell them what Randy said in my presence. Hopefully this is just an oversight on RAN's part and that they intend to pull their name from the membership list. WE ENCOURAGE ALL ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS who have a grain integrity to do the same!

Stay Strong, Forest Defenders!!! Make no mistake: WE ARE GOING TO SEE THIS FORESTLAND PROTECTED as a wildlife refuge, and we are going to make it happen through consumer pressure aimed at Gap Inc!!! Shout it from the City Squares and from the Mountaintops:

FOR REDWOODS AND WORKERS: BOYCOTT THE GAP, BANANA REPUBLIC, & OLD NAVY THIS HOLIDAY SEASON!!!

Mary Bull
Save the Redwoods/Boycott the Gap Campaign
252 Frederick Street, San Francisco, CA 94117
chalice@wco.com
415-731-7924
http://www.gapsucks.org

Other Contacts/Information Sources:

Mary Pjerrou,
Redwood Coast Watersheds Alliance
707-877-3405
pirohuck@mcn.org
http://www.elksoft.com/gwa

Mark Hilovsky
Builders Action Network
415-550-6850
mhilo@aol.co

Bay Area Coalition for Headwaters
510-835-6303
Listserve: listproc@envirolink.org
(message text = Subscribe BACHlist, followed by email address, then name)

Info on Gap Sweatshops:
http://www.globalexchange.org
leila@globalexchange.org

"God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there..."

• MRC has identified approximately 130 acres of 14 distinct "never-harvested" (FSC Type I) old growth stands. These acres will be permanently protected by MRC. The company has approximately 1,250 acres of previously harvested (FSC Type II) old growth stands where significant old growth characteristics are still present. The residual old growth trees and late successional characteristics of these stands are protected by written policy and only low-impact silviculture, such as thinning from below, is allowed to enhance or extend these stands. The remaining previously logged second-growth forests on MRC lands are estimated to contain up to 50,000 scattered residual old growth trees in very low densities. These old trees are being preserved, based on a policy that protects them by age, size, function and characteristics specific to particular species. The company has initiated a research program looking into alternatives to herbicides, including manual treatments and less-toxic compounds such as eucalyptus oil. It has committed to reducing and phasing out the use of chemicals (especially Garlon) to achieve site restoration goals, in favor of using non-chemical suppression alternatives, instead.
• There has been a substantial investment in and emphasis on road maintenance, as guided in part by watershed analyses
• The company has committed to a tanoak utilization project that entails re opening the Willits sawmill for the purpose of manufacturing tanoak flooring. It is intended that this marketing effort will help to defray the cost of the restoration efforts on the tanoak-dominated stands.
• The company has entered into cooperative stream restoration agreements and collaborative projects with Trout Unlimited and other entities, focusing on portions of the Navarro, Big River, Russian, Noyo, Garcia, and Albion River systems. A new management plan has been completed that provides overall guidance and that memorializes internal habitat protection policies that exceed regulatory requirements.
• Mendocino County is one of the most challenging and contentious regions in the western United States in which to practice industrial forest management. The county is increasingly within the influence of the San Francisco Bay Area metropolitan region and is increasingly within the "urban/rural interface," particularly in the southern half of the county. There is a very active, well-informed and vocal grass roots environmental community in the county that has been mobilized for at least the past two decades over commercial forestry issues. The forest practices of the prior owner, Louisiana Pacific, galvanized intense public opposition, including the grass roots environmental activist community. To a large extent, the enmity of the activist community has been transferred to L.P.'s successor, MRC, and to some extent intensified amongst the most vocal critics. An over-riding challenge facing MRC management personnel is to reverse or at least ameliorate the intensity of this negative socio-political dynamic.

1. Rainforest Action Network's main niche is to fight for old growth forests and the rights of Indigenous peoples in the forests. Given we cannot fight on every front, this is how we prioritize our campaigns. However, we are concerned with all forests and related issues.
   
   
2. We applaud Mendocino citizens working to hold logging companies accountable.
   
   
3. Because of the reduction of original redwood forests, we believe that heavily damaged redwood forests (such as Mendocino Redwood Company's (MRC) land) should be allowed or managed to return to late successional forest characteristics. This could have been done by the owners of the Mendocino Redwood Company (MRC) lands donating the land to the State of California for a new park and provide some funding (to be matched by others) to help restore the area to a more typical redwood forest type. This could also be done by certified low-impact logging for a return of redwoods in areas where other invasive species have taken over and a return to late successional forest characteristics.
   
   
4. Should the area continue to be logged, our position is the following:
   
   * We need Mendocino Redwood Company's help to solve the crisis in the world's forests.
   
   * We believe that an effective response to the deforestation problem could help us build an ecologically sustainable society in our lifetime, while also maintaining the viability of logging companies to support their work force.
   
   * Clearly, the prevailing sentiment among consumers and the public at large is that logging in endangered forests is outdated and unnecessary. Seven of the country's ten largest home improvement retailers-including Home Depot, Lowe's, and others-have committed to eliminate wood purchases from endangered forests and move to responsible alternatives. Kinko's, 3M, and IBM lead several dozen Fortune 500 companies actively working to eliminate old growth use for paper and packaging. This is only the beginning.
   
   * Several hundred other companies, including three of the nation's largest homebuilders, have recently joined this growing movement to end global destruction of endangered, old growth forests. This resounding call in the wood marketplace is in response to an acute problem in the world's forests.
   
   * According to the World Resources Institute, more than three-quarters of the world's old growth forests have already been destroyed or degraded, much within the past three decades. The United States faces the twin problems of rapid old growth forest depletion (96 percent already gone) and a shocking rate of over-cut and conversion of native forests to plantations.
   
   * Furthermore, the timber, do it yourself, and home building industry's use and distribution of old growth tropical forest products from Latin America, Southeast Asia and Africa, is fueling a mostly illegal and immoral logging industry that is causing massive species extinction and displacement of indigenous people.
   
   * Given this, it's no wonder that wood consumers, indigenous cultures, international organizations, local groups such as in Mendocino, and the general public are united in calling for systemic change in the logging industry. They understand that forests are an integral part of our planet's life support system and that continued destructive logging is essentially an act of environmental suicide.
   
   Our demands of MRC are the same as our demands of all logging companies worldwide. MRC can seize this opportunity and perform an ecological U-turn by adopting the following seven practices:
   
   a. Phase out logging and selling wood products from old growth forests·
   
   b. Terminate all logging and selling wood products from public lands in the U.S.
   
   c. Commit to no further conversion of native forests to plantations
   
   d. Cease development and planting of genetically modified trees.
   
   e. Adopt logging practices that meet or exceed those of the Forest Stewardship Council·
   
   f. Pursue the reduction of wood and wood paper consumption, particularly in wasteful, polluting industrial societies.
   
   g. Foster ecologically acceptable alternatives to wood products so as to reduce pressure on the world's forests
   
   We don't make these requests lightly, and we understand that this represents a significant challenge for any company. However, taking these steps is an economic imperative for MRC. Polls show up to 80 percent support for increased forest protection, with as much as 50 percent of respondents declaring support for boycotts of logging companies who refuse to change. Corporate commitments to phase out endangered forest wood and paper total more than $20 billion in annual purchases. All logging companies must move toward developing a business relationship with the world's forests that is appropriate for the 21st century. MRC can adapt and become an innovative and responsible materials provider, one that is well positioned in the new economy. Or it can fail to meet the demands of its customers and the buying public, and watch its markets quickly disappear.
   
   
5. Regarding certification:
   Rainforest Action Network are members of FSC and endorse that process as the most stringent one around. We will continue to work to make FSC stronger, especially regarding old growth protection.
   
   The Rainforest Action Network's response regarding Ms. Bull's letter on Mendocino Redwood Company (MRC) and Forest Stewardship Council (FSC):
   Her comment on the Rainforest Action Network's position on FSC certification is not accurate and was taken out of context. We at Rainforest Action Network know that it is not enough to simply state where logging should NOT occur, such as in old growth forests. It is also important for us to address how and where logging MIGHT occur. It is for this reason that we support the work to develop a strong FSC system to independently certify logging (where logging is deemed appropriate). Independently certified logging is a key part of an overall set of solutions. FSC certification is today's best method of encouraging sensible logging. Certified logging, combined with radical consumption reduction of wood and wood paper, and a number of other key actions will give us a chance to halt deforestation and begin to leave subsequent generations with more and more old growth forests. A more contextualized look at our position on MRC and forests in general is stated below.
   You may also wish to see our "500 Year Plan" on our web site at: http://www.ran.org/info_center/plan.html
   
   
6. MRC failed their first effort to get certified. We believe that MRC needs to address the concerns of the local citizens and the impacts of the last three years.
   
   
7. We thank all of the people (private citizens or in businesses) who are working for the goals stated above. If we do not resolve our relationship to nature and each other, history will be justifiably unkind to us. Conversely, by halting deforestation and building an ecologically sound, socially just society we can rejoice a healthy planet that supports all people and all creatures

1. The forest has been overlogged and that the current LP Timber Harvest Plans which MRC is completing are more of the same. However they hope and have reason to believe that the future Timber Harvest plans will be an improvement. But there is still plenty of room to improve on those.
2. A 1% to 2% P.O.I. (Percent of Inventory standing trees which can be cut per year) plan which was calculated by Hans Burkhardt is what the Mendocino County people promoted and passed themselves. It was canceled as a requirement at the State level. I do not believe that MRC is planning to use that standard; hence the disappointment. However, there are timber sales in the forest which are even worse than MRC's. One of these occupied some of the Skunk Train area people this fall.

I am not sure if or why MRC is allowed to use FSC certification for lumber it is cutting on the more destructive LP plans. These have reduced the ecosystem diversity drastically by replacing a mixed conifer and hardwood forest with single conifer species; killing everything from Tanoak to mushrooms. Perhaps with continued dialogue, MRC will adopt a harvesting plan which restores the Mendocino Forest ecosystem diversity, health, and habitat. Burkhardt's data suggests that this is possible while at the same time his plan increases the value of the timber by letting it get much older before harvesting any of it.