It was sold to Boise-Cascade and logged this summer in a military style corporate takeover of public land where they put a 35 mile closure on the area and set up a logger town inside. The media could only go where Boise-Cascade would allow them and when they tried to get aerial shots ina a helicopter, they extended the closure to 2000 ft. above the mountain. THE AGENCY WAS TAKING ORDERS FROM BOISE-CASCADE!!! It may seem too late to continue the BOYCOTT started, but if you read on you'll see how evil this corporate giant is. This conglomerate has a one year contract for office supplies with the state government of Oregon. We need to barrage the state Department of Administration with letters about why they should not renew this contract come 1996.
The Siskiyou Regional Education Project and other environmental groups are promoting a boycott of Boise Cascade Corporation because of their refusal to give up the Sugarloaf timber sale, a mountainside of giant, ancient trees in the Siskiyou National Forest that lies inside a crucial roadless wildlife migration corridor. Under the Clinton Forest Plan, this area was to be set aside as an Ancient Forest Reserve and a Key Watershed. But at the last minute, because this sale was auctioned (but not sold) back in 1989, the Administration created a loophole to allow it to go through. The Sugarloaf "sale" is really a license to steal from the public and exemplifies how the timber industry exercises control over ostensibly "public" lands.
Boise Cascade, the nation's second largest forest products company, was originally incorporated by Frederick Weyerhauser back in 1913 as Boise Payette. In 1957, it was merged with Cascade Lumber into Boise Cascade. The company received at least 172,000 acres of Northern Pacific Railroad grant land from the federal government between 1913 and 1947. The legality of this land transfer has been challenged by Spokane environmentalist John Osborne, who has proposed that Congress take the land back from Boise Cascade, Weyerhauser, Plum Creek and other giant timber companies because of violations of the original conditions imposed upon Northern Pacific Railroad. There is precedent for such an action. In 1916 Congress took back lands given to the Oregon and California Railroad, now known as O&C lands and managed by the BLM and the US Forest Service.
In 1995, Boise Cascade now owns 1.3 million acres of land in the Pacific Northwest and 1.4 million acres in New England and the South. They also hold long term government licenses to log 3.4 million acres in Central Canada. In their annual report to shareholders, Boise Cascade boasts of its independent fiber supply - claiming that 50% of its raw materials are supplied from its own lands and the Canadian licenses. But in the Pacific Northwest, Boise Cascade has been the number one purchaser of tax-payer subsidized federal timber for the past three years. Most of that is old growth. Last year they bought 13.7% of the sales offered, a total of 110,000,000 board feet.
The company owns 7 pulp and paper mills in Alabama, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Oregon, Washington and Ontario. They own 7 corrugated container plants in Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Washington, and 10 lumber and plywood and particleboard mills in Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Alabama and Louisiana. They are the third largest distributor of home building supplies.
In recent years Boise Cascade has been moving strongly into the office supply distributing business. They run office products distribution centers in 23 states and have contracts with large companies (Boeing, IBM, United Airlines) and state institutions like schools and universities (University of Oregon, University of Nebraska). Last year they acquired Reliable, a mail order office supply distributor with 260,000 active accounts. By the end of 1994, office supplies accounted for about 20% of the company's sales for a third of its profits.
Paper manufacturing represents almost half of Boise Cascade's sales, but the company has been losing money badly on paper for the past few years, throwing the whole company in the red. (It is currently saddled with a $2 billion debt load.) This year, however, paper prices are surging upward and Boise Cascades 1980's investments in new plant capacity may start to turn a profit for the company on paper. Boise Cascade makes all grades of paper, from newsprint to coated magazine papers and office copy paper. Office copy paper is sold under the brand names "Boise Cascade," "Cascade," and "Oxford".
Boise's paper problems may be partly to blame for its tendency to put "profits before people,' in the words of Minnesota AFL-CIO President Dan Gustafson. The company has a terrible record of OSHA violations, charged with 340 "willful" (meaning purposefully, not accidentally negligent) violations of worker safety rules since 1988.
Only about half the company's 17,000 workers are now protected with union contracts: Boise has a recent history of brutal union busting tactics. In Rumford, Maine and in International Falls, Minnesota, Boise Cascade hired the scab worker service BE & K along with a professional goon squad to provoke violent confrontations between strikers and scabs. When the Rumford strike was over, scabs were given seniority over the regular workers. Boise Cascade "won" that strike, but it cost them over 30 million dollars. John Case, writing in the journal, Political Affairs said, "The attack on Boise workers is essentially a strategy that seeks to achieve a higher return on investment at the expense of the workers. For Boise to spend $30,000,000 on such a strategy astounds the average person. Yet it is typical of the parasitic and arrogant position of the giant corporations."
Forest defenders in Oregon must consider that if Boise Cascade would spend 30 million dollars to break a strike, how much will they spend to break resistance to their logging of the last of the old growth forests?
Approximately 73% of the wood chip supply for Boise Cascades Northwest mills comes as residual from saw timber mills. As this supply shrinks, the company is looking for other sources of pulp chips. Their long term plan is to move more of their resources to the South, but they have made one small investment to secure a more sustainable supply in the Northwest: they recently planted 15,000 acres in fast growing cottonwoods (6 years to harvest) using drip irrigation in Eastern Washington. They expect this land to supply 20% of the raw fiber for their Wallula paper mill. If the company would spend more of it's money on this kind of investment for the future and less on resisting the inevitable change away from using old growth, we might begin to consider them environmentally and socially responsible.
Boise Cascade is a very active member of the American Forest Resource Alliance, and a major contributor to timber industry political action committees. Those PAC's gave $2.7 million to candidates in 1991-1992. Boise has also opposed a mandated recycling law in Idaho and tried to weaken an Oregon regulation controlling pulp mill emissions of organo-chlorides. Former Idaho Senator, James McClure, sits on Boise's board of directors. He also runs a Washington, DC lobbying firm, so you can be sure Boise Cascade is well represented in our government.
In a reply to a letter asking Boise Cascade to give up the Sugarloaf Sale, CEO George Harad suggested that if the sale was not appropriate, the Forest Service is to blame. But Forest Service policies are determined by politicians who are bought and sold by the timber industry. It is clear that the buck stops at industry's door, and that is the door that must hear the pounding of angry citizens.
Boise Cascade claims a commitment to "...being a responsible corporate citizen in the communities in which we operate, and providing active stewardship of the timberlands under our management." (1994 Annual Report) Yet, their bottom line is that they are only responsible for increasing the profits of their shareholders. They must come to see that the real bottom line is the sustainability of the forests and the health and safety of workers. Since we are all shareholders in Planet Earth, Boise Cascade's greater responsibility is to meet the Earth's bottom line.
Here are some steps that Boise Cascade can take to become a truly ecologically and socially responsible company:
1) Publicly admit they were wrong to cut the Sugarloaf sale & leave the trees on site.
2) Stop promoting growth in paper consumption. Instead, sell increased value in recycled and alternative fiber papers and encourage reduced consumption.
3) Stop all dependence on cutting native forests for raw materials.
4) Improve worker health and safety to the highest levels.
5) Encourage workplace democracy and unionization of all employees who want to be unionized.
6) Stop spending money on "greenwashing" advertising designed to deceive the public about Boise's commitment to environmental values.
7) Stop making large contributions to politicians and hiring DC lobbyists.
8) Stop opposing regulations to reduce organo- chlorides. Produce more unbleached and non-chlorine bleached papers.
Major subsidiaries: Reliable (mail order office supplies), Rainy River (Canadian pulp and paper), Duropak and Schumacher (German container board)
Brand name list: paper - Cascade, Oxford, MP; office supplies - Associated, Cascade, Frederick-Sherry; building supplies - Noyo, Vinyl Bond, Wevelite; containers - Specialty Paperboard, Duropak, Shumacher
Major Shareholders: State Farm Auto Insurance (5%), Ohio State Teachers Retirement, New York State Teachers Retirement, Harvard College, California State Teachers Retirement, California Public Employees Retirement.
Interlocking Directorates (other corporate boards that Boise board members sit on): Albertson's, Alco, American Express, Boeing, Citicorp, Ford Foundation, Gen Corp, General Motors, Hewlett-Packard, McKesson Alternatives Sources of Paper and Office Supplies.
While researching this article, I called up my friend at the Land Ethics Alliance in Tennessee. They are boycotting Champion Intl., which is clearcutting the Southern states to feed giant chip mills for the international pulp market. Boise Cascade has been expanding its operations in the South, quadrupling its capacity there in the last decade. Denny points out that the only way to stop the stripping of southern forests is to drastically reduce paper consumption. Even the recycled paper that schools and other government institutions are now required to buy is usually only %10 - %15 recycled post consumer waste. Until businesses and institutions switch over to %50 or more recycled, or even better, tree-free paper, the devastation of forests around the world will continue.
According to the Council on Economic Priorities, Union Camp paper has high marks for social and environmental responsibility. Union Camp is distributed in Oregon by Kirk Paper Co. (503) 684-4911. Kirk had the Oregon state contract a few years ago. They also distribute for Boise Cascade, so it would have to be made clear to them that Boise paper was not wanted. Council on Economic Priorities also recommends Mead office products and 3-M Corporation for general office supplies.
There are also several smaller distributors who specialize in recycled paper, tree-free paper (from hemp, straw and kenaf fibers) and office supplies of all types. Here are some addresses:
¥ Real Recycled - paper and office supplies - 1541 Adrian Rd., Burlingame, CA * Tree Free Ecopaper - hemp and straw paper - 121 SW Salmon St., ste 1100, Portland, OR 97204, (800) 775- 0225 ¥ Vision Paper - manufacturers and suppliers of kenaf paper. Their paper now used at some Kinko's copy centers - P.O. Box 20399, Albuquerque, NM 87154-0399, (505) 294-0293 ¥ EcoTech Recycled Products - recycled office and business products - 14241 60th St. North, Clearwater, FL 34620 (813) 531-5353 ¥ Green Earth Office Supply - P.O. Box 719, Redwood Estates, CA 95044 (800) 327-8449 ¥ GreenCo Products - recycled paper and office supplies - 239 Ferry Road, Unit 2, Brattleboro, VT 05301 (800) 326-2897 ¥ Atlantic Recycled Paper Co. - 822-A Frederick Rd., Baltimore, MD 21228, (800) 323-2811 ¥ Full Circle Paper Outlet - 3437 Hillsborough Rd., Durham, NC 27705, (919) 309-0811 ¥ Peacetree Recycled Paper - paper and office supplies - 523 NE Davis, Portland, OR 97232, (503)233-5821 ¥ House of Doolittle - Calendars and appointment books on recycled paper - 701 Lunt, Elk Grove Village, IL 60007, (708)228-9591
Siskiyou Regional Education Project is looking for other organizations willing to sign on to this boycott. Please contact Kelpie Wilson, SREP, P.O. Box 220, Cave Junction, OR 97523 email: siskiyou@igc.apc.org
Many thanks to Institute on Trade Policy for research used in this report. Council on Economic Priorities and the Data Center of Oakland, CA also provided useful information.
Hello Forest & Fiber activists,
Enclosed is a form letter I developed for people to mail to their
state governments. For those not in Oregon, you will have to find out
which department of your state government or subdivision thereof is
responsible for procurements and bidding the contract for office supplies,
as well as the person's name who personally handles these matters. This
can be obtained by asking your University's procurement person or looking
up the Purchasing Division in the phone book and giving them a call.
For those of you in Oregon, I thought you'd like to have Joe Steger's phone and fax number, so can expeditiously give or tell hime any extra information that I may have left out. ph:378-4292 fax:373-1626
Make sure that along with the petitions you send a copy of the letter to the Boise-Cascade CEO George Harard and let him know that hundreds of people are mailing these letters to the state government and telling the local media about it. let's drag their image through the dirt until they see that the most cost-effective alternative is leaving the public's ancient forests alone.
Joe Steger
State of Oregon
DAS Purchasing Division
Salem, OR 97310
The stateÕs price agreement for office supplies with the Boise-Cascade Corporation was renewed for 1995, after the previous three-year agreement expired. Soon the stateÕs price agreement will expire once again, so a bidding process for this agreement must be planned for later this year. We were very disappointed that the Department of Administrative Services renewed the agreement with the Boise-Cascade Corporation and its subsidiary The Reliable Corporation, and we demand that in the future the state reconsider doing business with this or any other company that does not demonstrate social responsibility, particularly with regard to impacts on the natural and human-created environment. This contract is very relevant to these issues, considering the vast amounts of resources needed to make paper and other office supplies. We demand that you change your specifications so that socially irresponsible companies are not awarded. We have many suggestions as to the indicators you should use and the types of questions you should be asking.
In the case of Boise-Cascade, we feel that although this company is moving more in the right direction due to the forest crisis, they are still not practicing responsible forestry. They are one of the largest private forest land owners in the state (1.3 million acres in the northwest) and they were the largest purchaser of federal timber in the northwest for the last three years, so their forestry practices have a big impact on the stability of forest-related jobs, the continued survival of the fishing (salmon) industry along with the fish it depends on, the quality of the water we drink, the ecological integrity of our forest ecosystems, and even the ability of our lands to regenerate trees.
There is considerable public outcry against the Sugarloaf Timber Sale in the Siskiyou National Forest of Southern Oregon, which Boise-Cascade purchased. This 669 acre sale lies within an Ancient Forest Reserve and is considered a ÒKey Watershed,Ó critical to the survival of dwindling salmon stocks. There has been massive opposition to this sale since it was first offered in 1990. The Forest Service claimed that only 20% of the sale area was old-growth, but an independent foresterÕs report says 80% of the sale area contains trees over 250 years old, some over 700 years old and seven feet in diameter. Under the latest ÒrationaleÓ of promoting forest ÒhealthÓ by Òreducing the risk of catastrophic fire,Ó this sale will set the precedent for the destruction of all the remaining roadless areas in our National Forests. A broad coalition of many respected and knowledgeable people have spoken out against this timber sale, including former Governor Barbara Roberts, the Oregon Democratic Party, Forest Scientists and Professors Dave Perry and William Ferrell, Dr. Reed Noss of the Society for Conservation Biology, The Unitarian Church of Grants Pass, local businesses, and local and national conservation groups.
Boise-Cascade owns 2.7 million acres of timberland and is the second largest producer in the US. They used 756 million board feet of timber last year. Like most big timber corporations, Boise has been responding to the timber shortage and the demand for recycled products. About one-third of their paper has some recycled content, and last year, Boise invested $75 million in a new paper recycling plant. They are the second largest producer of engineered lumber, beams, and joists using wood scraps and glues. We believe the Boise-Cascade Corporation and many other corporations need public guidance because the market fails to take into account many practices, allowing ecological destruction and the value of ecological integrity (clean land, air, and water) to future generations to be external from the cost of production. We note that this is recognized to a small extent by state laws requiring certain recycled products to be purchased if only slightly more expensive, but this does not go far enough. Business is innovative and will respond to the big impacts that the government can have on the market. It is time that the people and their government start to demand that large corporations act in a responsible manner. Through public guidance, we can convince Boise-Cascade that to become a thoroughly modern building and paper products company, they must give up their dependence on our ancient forests for raw materials.
Here is a list of questions that we think suppliers to the state should address to the best of their ability if they want to be awarded state price agreements or contracts:
Packaging: Is the packaging necessary? Can it be eliminated? Is minimal packaging used? Is the product packaged in bulk? Is the packaging reusable or recyclable? Are recyclable materials used to produce the packaging? What percent of post-consumer materials are used? Can the packaging be returned to the supplier? Is the packaging compostable? Material Source: Are recycle materials used in the product? If so, what percentage? What percent of post-consumer materials are used? If wood is used in the product, what is its source and how is it harvested? Was it clear-cut or from an endangered ecosytem (usually old-growth)? Energy Efficiency: Is the product energy efficient compared to competitive products? Can the product be recharged? Can the product run on renewable fuels? Does the product require less energy to manufacture than competing products?
Water Conservation: Does the product reduce water use? Does the product require less water to manufacture than competing products?
Hazardous Materials Use & Disposal: Does the product use fewer polluting byproducts in manufacturing than competing products? Is the product free of banned substances? Heavy metals? Volatile organic compounds (VOCÕs)? Is the product free of toxic chemicals? Is a competitive product available that uses fewer chemicals/pesticides? Is a large savings worth putting persistent toxins into anybodyÕs environment? Does the product require special, often expensive, disposal? Does the product emit VOCÕs or other air pollutants? Does the product require special instruction for use in order to protect worker health and safety?
Supplier Environmental Record: Is the company producing the product in compliance with all environmental laws and regulations? What is the companyÕs record in handling environmental and safety issues? Can the company verify all environmental claims? Does the manufacturer/supplier have a company environmental policy statement? What programs are in place/planned for promoting resource efficiency? Are printed materials available documenting these programs? Has the company conducted an environmental or waste audit? Is the product supplier equipped to bid and bill electronically? Has an environmental life-cycle analysis of the product (and its packaging) been conducted by a legitimate testing and certification organization, such as Green Seal?
BOYCOTT PLEDGE We pledge to boycott the Boise-Cascade Corporation and itÕs subsidiaries, including the Reliable Corporation, and itÕs stockholders, until the corporation starts to practice ecological forestry and gives up its dependence on our Ancient Forests. This will be demonstrated by withdrawing their purchase of the Sugarloaf Timber Sale through negotiating a Forest Service buy-back of the sale on the grounds that : 1) The Forest Service lied about true nature of the sale area, ignored public opposition, and refused to redraw the sale.
2) It is irresponsible to log an area that contains the last 5% of an endangered late-successional forest ecosystem, a reserve of unquantifiable importance.
Furthermore, we oppose renewal of the price agreement for office supplies that the corporation has with our state and we support extensive new specifications that any business that enters into price agreements or contracts with the state should meet strict requirements regarding the environmental soundness of their products or services and the impacts of their business practices on their workers and the communities in which they operate.
NAME ADDRESS
Ancient Forests
Page
survival@gladstone.uoregon.edu