AGAINST OLD GROWTH PRODUCTS

Your campus or community may be thousands of miles away from any of the world's remaining old growth rainforests, but you still have the power to protect them!

Old growth forests are home to well over half of the plant and animal species on the planet, they play an important role in stabilizing climate, and are home to thousands of unique traditional communities.

From the tropical rainforests of the Amazon to the temperate rainforests of British Columbia, from the redwoods of northern California to the still pristine areas of Siberia and Southeast Asia, indigenous peoples have been fighting the destruction of their homeland by multinational logging companies for decades. There are many actions we can take in our communities to support them in their struggles. One of the most profound ways is to address one of the root causes for this destruction - our own consumption habits.

We invite you to initiate an important process to protect old growth forests: transfomming the procurement policies or buying practices in your community or campus. Your group, working in tandem with others, can send a strong message to all parties engaged in the trade of old growth wood products that we will no longer tolerate the destruction of the world's last remaining ancient forests for lumber, paper or any other products. When cities, counties, colleges and universities put their purchasing power behind an issue, the message gets heard.

This tactic has a great track record. Many cities are amending existing policies to go completely old growth-free. The City of Los Angeles, for instance, has a powerful old growth-free purchasing ordinance in place, and the California cities of Santa Monica and Berkeley are in the early stages of initiating ordinances of their own.

The Hard Facts

76 countries have already lost every acre of their old growth forests; 11 more are on the verge of losing what remains of theirs.

In the U.S. 4% of old growth forests still exist.

The rate of wood consumption in the U.S. and Canada is double that of other industrialized nations...and is expected to increase 46% by 2040.

We already have the technology to reduce our wood consumption by 75-90%

It is time for municipalities and institutions of higher learning to take responsibility for their buying habits. Students are a powerfule voice on campus; demand that your tuition dollars be spent in ways that are ecologically and socially responsible.

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