The following posting is from Hayden who is at our Forest Defenders Camp. Learn more about the camp and threats to Indonesian forests.

I spent this morning at one of the dam construction sites as one of the standby medics.  I was the only one who got hurt this morning though.  I was climbing down the face of one of the dams when I used a piece of wood that hadn't been nailed in as an anchor (always test your anchors!).  I came tumbling down into the water, along with my camera. My camera appears like it will recover.  And I escaped with only a small scrape.

I departed the work site with about 15 hugs (turns out Indonesians are huggers - either that or they assumed that Americans are) - I even got a hug from our stoic Finnish action coordinator, Petteri.

I'm really going to miss many people here.  I've made a lot of new friendships with people from all over the world.  And it's been an awesome experience to be a part of this camp, where people converge from all over the world for the same purpose:  to save the remaining peatland forest (and all the stored carbon it contains.)

Right now Rob is stapling up all the articles that we're featured in. There are stories in many different languages from newspapers all over the world.  There's actually not enough room on the wall for all of them.  To see the articles is a great reminder that what we're doing here is making a difference.

Although I'm leaving, the the work of the camp is continuing.  Many more journalists are arriving next week, and interest is continuing to pick up.  It's almost a good thing that the dam construction is taking so long, as it gives more opportunities for the press to witness what is happening here.

I want to thank Rici, Rob, Geoff, Coang, John, Yudi, Hapsoro, David, Frode, JJ, Cedar, Yifang, Titis, Ranga, Oka, Imam, the U.S. Consulate in Medan, and everyone else who has helped make the camp work  (and that's a lot of people, at least 200 others, not including all of our generous donors).

As I was leaving the dam site today, someone yelled "don't forget us!" - I'm sure that I will never forget this experience.

Hayden 

The following posting is from Hayden who is at our Forest Defenders Camp. Learn more about the camp and threats to Indonesian forests.

Constructing the dams in the peatland canals over the last few days has been extremely challenging.  Getting materials ontime, extremely hot weather, and today we had probably our most interesting challenge.

We showed up to the building site of dam number three only to find a pompong (boat) stuck behind our half constructed dam.  In it was a mother and father with five children, and all of their possessions.  It turns out that they had just been evicted by Duta Palma from their house they were building.  The company told them they were squatting illegally and had to leave.  So they left the way they got there, using one of the canals at high tide.  Except this time their way was blocked.

We worked all morning as the tide rose with the family hanging out in their boat right behind the dam.  They even had a rooster they had tied to a tree nearby.

Finally at high tide we had to deal with moving a huge boat with a diesel engine over our dam.  None of us were looking forward to it, and many of us thought it might be impossible with the tools and people power we had available to us.

We used wooden poles as a ramp up over the dam, and used two lengths of rope wrapped under the boat to help lift and push it, inch by inch, over the dam.  Fortunately it worked.

Afterward I asked Petteri, the Finnish action coordinator who is helping coordinate the dam building, if he was taught how to deal with that situation in action planning school.  He replied with his usual finnish chuckle.

We now have two dams completed, and another one about halfway done.  But today is my last day.  I'm off tomorrow, as I've been here nearly a month.  In fact, I have the current record for the person who has been here at camp the longest.  People say they can notice, as apparently I appear very comfortable here.  In fact, I sleep very well every night now.  And I've acclimated to the heat - I watch the new arrivals drip with sweat after being in the sun for only 2 minutes.  I also get some enjoyment in watching them squirm every evening as the bugs swarm around them.  Maybe it is time for me to leave...

 - Hayden

The following posting is from Hayden who is at our Forest Defenders Camp. Learn more about the camp and threats to Indonesian forests.

I wanted to write a quick web log entry about our major means of transportation here in this corner of Sumatra: the pompong

The pompong is THE means of transport on the rivers here.  In fact, it's the only type of boat that I've seen on the Cinaku and Indragiri rivers.

The pompong is a custom made boat that is long and narrow, and comes in a variety of sizes.  What they all have in common is an old school inboard diesel engine that can be heard from over a mile away.  The engines have no electrics.  It is started with a crank, just like the old cars.  And being a diesel there are no spark plugs involved. The engine is then connected to a shaft that runs through the hull at a very shallow angle and sits just behind the middle of the boat.  This protects the prop from river debris, which is important since the rivers here are almost swamps.   It also allows the boat to go in very shallow waters, which is important for the work of the pompong.  They use these boats for transport, fishing, and shipping.

The steering system is very basic, like everything on the boat.  It uses two ropes that wrap around the steering column that then run back to the rudder.  While the potential for steering failure is high, any problems can be fixed while on the water.  I've been witness to this, as we lost steering through a narrow canal, but they merely retied the ropes and we were off again.

On Cedar and JJ's trip back to Rengat yesterday they actually lost the rudder.  Luckily they were close to the village of Kuala Cinaku.  The driver of the boat disembarked and disappeared in the bushes and reappeared about 30 minutes later with a new rudder.  Having a standardized vessel for the entire region makes finding spare parts easier.

The name of the boat is derived from the sound that they make: pompongpompongpompong...

They are so loud it sounds like a helicopter approaching, and I'm sure some of the pompong drivers have long term hearing loss, as the sound can be deafening.

And the last feature of the ponpong is that anything goes; anything can be towed, no lifejackets required, smoking is allowed, even if you're sitting on the gas tank, and the capacity of the boat is as many people as can fit. This morning, on our way to the damming site, we fit about 15 people on the boat, and then towed two canoes full of people. We managed to get a crew of about 30 to the work site in one trip.

The pompong is what keeps things moving (incluging Greenpeace) here in Riau.

- Hayden 

The following posting is from Hayden who is at our Forest Defenders Camp. Learn more about the camp and threats to Indonesian forests.

I haven't written a web log entry for a few days. I've been busy building dams for Greenpeace.  I never thought I'd type that line.  Usually we're opposing dams, not building them.

Building dams is apparently extremely laborious and time consuming work. Fortunately we've had an infusion of community members from the local village helping us out.  They really know how to work and have shown up most of the city folk here.  They also are extremely entertained by seeing a "bule" put in some hard labor.  They've taken to calling me by the name of some soccer player who plays for AC Milan who they think I look like.  Probably some white dude with a beard.  They also call me "Mister Sport", which I'm not sure is a compliment or an insult.

So yesterday we finished two dams, and it was incredibly satisfying to see the water level rise behind the dam.  Rob said it one of the coolest and most effective actions he's ever been a witness to.  We have three more dams to go, however.

The idea of building these dams is to help raise the level of water in the peatland area to its previous height, thereby restoring the area to it's natural state.  This would take quite some time, as the forest has been cleared and burned.  But damming the canals is the first step towards restoration.  The oil palms, already planted in the area certainly aren't going to like the rising water levels.  But that doesn't really concern us, especially as seeing as this palm concession is illegal under international law.  The law states that any peatlands over 3 meters in depth may not be deforested and converted.  The peatland area where this concession exists has peatland depths of over 8 meters (26 feet).  8 meters was the maximum depth that could be measured with the tools that were used by the surveying crew of scientists who helped us measure the peatland depth.  In many areas the peatland depth exceeds 8 meters.

So far we haven't had any reaction from the company that owns and operates the concession, Duta Palma.  Some of the workers have come by to check out our work, but none have done anything to stop us - yet. There could me many reasons for this, such as the probability that they know that their operation is illegal.  Another possible reason is that they know how much support we have among the community, and even among the local officials, which brings me to another story.

We had yet another visit from government officials.  This time we were told to expect about 6 people, and of course about 15 arrived.  They were mostly officials from the Indonesian equivalent of the county level.  Also with them were some people from military intelligence.  The government officials were extremely friendly. They even visited one of the damming sites and expressed their support.  The military intelligence officials, dressed in all black with sunglasses, weren't quite as vocal in their support.  But I assume that's just their MO. It was great though to see the support we are getting from official government in Indonesia.  This can sometimes be a risky place to make bold statements, and how Indonesian officials will react cannot always be predicted.  Right now it seems that we are safe from goverment intervention.

After our last visit from the police and police intelligence I contacted the U.S. embassy,mostly because the visiting officials asked me if I had registered with the embassy.  I have to say that I have had excellent support, especially from the consulate in Medan on Sumatra. They have kept in contact, and even read my web log.  Illegal logging is an issue that is very important to them.

I only have a few more days left in camp.  It has been nearly a month. I acclimated to the heat here, I sleep well every night, I haven't had a beer in a month, and I wake up at 5:30 almost every morning, and people make fun of me for my American accent.  I have a feeling that some changes will be coming soon.

I'll send out more updates on our progress, and any reaction from Duta Palma, if they react at all.

Also, I'm told that my web log is being translated to mandarin and is published on the largest web site in China.  So that's kind of cool.

Hayden

The following posting is from Hayden who is at our Forest Defenders Camp. Learn more about the camp and threats to Indonesian forests.

Today we began the process of damming the canals that drain are draining the peatland forests of the bordering palm oil concession.  We began work with about 40 people at 6am this morning, mostly volunteers from the local communities.

The first job was to finish moving all the damming materials over half a mile up one of the canals.This is a huge task that requires hours of work, as we're talking about tons of material for each dam. We use canoes to carry the sandbags, and we float the wood poles in the canals and someone has to wade through the coffee tinted water pushing them up the canal against the current.

We are planning on building a total of 5 canals in the coming week. Assisting us are experts in canal dam building and peatland restoration from Indonesia.

In addition to the challenge of moving many tons of material over many miles, we also have the additional challenge of having to time our work with the tides.  We use high tide to move the materials up the canals, and then we use the lower tides to begin the building process of the dams.

I was fortunate enough to not have to work most of the morning, as I was supporting our para-motor pilots.  I have to stay on standby with first-aid supplies in case of any incidents.

When I finally got to one of the dam building sites most people were already exhausted.  They had been working at the site since 7am with only a break for lunch.  I helped carry wooden cants to the dam building site.  After about an hour of that I went to work with an axe sharpening the ends of the cants so they could be pounded into the ground for dam supports.  Cedar and I worked on that as many people watched, and apparently were very entertained by the site of two white guys working with axes.  We chopped on amid the laughter, and made our own jokes about the irony of working on a Greenpeace action that involves chopping wood.  Usually we're on the other side of that.

More damn building tomorrow.  I have to make this short as bugs are attacking me and the computer I'm writing on.  Ah, one just flew into my eye.

 

 Hayden 

The following posting is from Hayden who is at our Forest Defenders Camp. Learn more about the camp and threats to Indonesian forests.

Yesterday afternoon we received a visit from 22 members of various regional and local police and police intelligence officers.  They hung around the camp all afternoon, taking pictures, asking us questions, and speaking with some of our Indonesian campmates.  One of them also helped himself to Frode's last piece of chocolate, which Frode wasn't too happy about.  I grabbed my camera and asked if we could get some pictures with them, to which they happily agreed.

Finally at around 7pm they departed, but they've left two armed officers here at camp to keep an eye on us.  We're making every effort to explain to all the various law enforcement agencies why we're here, and that our work here is also about helping the Indonesian goverment.  Hopefully this message can get through to the right people, and we can continue our work unabated.

And a big Hi from Rob, he really is the greatest guy

The following posting is from Hayden who is at our Forest Defenders Camp. Learn more about the camp and threats to Indonesian forests.

Yesterday our real Communications Hardware Coordinator arrived, over a week late.  This means that I was replaced.  Which is a good thing.  I was tired of having to stay here at camp and be the comms center for our various activities.  And when I came here I never anticipated having this responsibility.  I was happy to fill in until Geoff got his Visa taken care of, but I knew that it was just temporary.

Geoff arrived yesterday morning, and we did a walk through of all our gear here and how it functions.  The solar system, lighting, satellite comms, radios, GPSs, etc. etc.  And then I was free, finally.  I immediately got on a "pong pong" (local diesel power boat) full of very heavy building materials and worked for hours and hours, carrying many tons (literally) of building materials including sand and lumber in 100 degree heat.  I was so hot at the end that I actually dove into the dark black water of the canal.  The water was so acidic is burned every cut and scratch on my body, and there are many.  I figured that if anything the water helped disinfect my wounds.  I'll try to get some photos up in the next few days from our photographer, Oka.  Attached is a photo of some of the materials we had to unload.

And this morning, I was able to leave camp once again, this time to help support Cedar, one of our para-motor pilots.  He was doing an aerial survey of the concession, and looking for peatland fires.  Since many of the Indonesians had to go into town to the mosque for their Friday prayers, that left me and another bule (white foriegner) to be on the motorbike team.  So that was a lot of fun, but getting out of camp is quite challenging, especially for someone who's experience is solely on road bikes.  But I got the hang of it pretty quickly, and the most challenging part was wearing full motocross protection, boots, body armor, gloves, helmet, goggles, in this heat and humidity.  It was nearly unbearable.  But I still enjoyed it.  There's something exciting about riding a motocross bike covered in Greenpeace logos.

So that's what I'm up to now.  I'm also doing more work for the international media team.  I'm one of the talking heads featured in a web video that should be up on the Greenpeace International site soon. Also some news networks very familiar to the United States will be
visiting the camp soon, and it's been suggested that an American accent may be in demand for parts of that.  And since I'm the only one here with one of those, it's assumed that I'll be doing some work with them. And the last update on the media front is that I just wrote my first blog for the Chinese website QQ.com, which as I mentioned earlier is the largest web site in China, and the fifth largest web site in the world, so I'm told.  There going to have someone translate it into Mandarin, so hopefully I end up saying the same thing on the other side.  I'm going to have a friend in the Greenpeace China office letting me know how it's
sounding on their end once it's translated.

Okay, more building materials are waiting for me.  Also, we're about to be visited by the city and provincial police forces today.  Hopefully that all goes well.  I may actually take a cue from others at camp and register with the U.S. embassy.  Though I'm confident things will be
fine, especially with all the attention we're beginning to draw.

More coming.

Hayden

The following posting is from Hayden who is at our Forest Defenders Camp. Learn more about the camp and threats to Indonesian forests.

Last night at camp we had an incredible display of talent from all over our planet.  We had an amazing blend of cultures on display from Germany, Finland, Papua, Java, New Zealand, Australia, the U.S.A. and Argentina.

The talent show, or what we called the unjuk bakat in bahasa indonesia, is definitely a foreign concept to Indonesians, and probably to many others in camp from places farther afield.  I'm not sure of the cultural history of the talent show, but it is certainly something familiar to most Americans.

I suggested the idea of a talent show last week, when I noticed that after our nightly debriefings about the days events, the camp separated into separate groups, generally based on languages spoken.  I wanted to create a fun evening event that would get us all together.

It was challenging at first to get the Indonesians to sign up and participate in this foreign concept.  I even got a bunch of prizes together to try and encourage participation.  Most people were wary to participate, but the night of the event when it really became apparent how it was truly open to all comers we had some late entries from our local hosts.

I started off the evening, figuring that I should set an example of how it's not that bad making a fool out of yourself in front of everyone, and it can actually be quite entertaining to the audience.  I created a skit (which was a new word to many people here, including most of the english speakers) - it was called "The Debrief" and I played Rob Taylor, our fearleass kiwi leader, and re-enacted one of our debriefs, except different people played different characters.  The highlight was JJ, one of our pilots, dressed up as Yifang, our Chinese forest campaigner.  He wore some of her clothing, which was quite funny considering that he's about twice her size.

After the skit, we had an incredible performance by both of our pilots, JJ and Cedar.  They did a duet with a guitar, and a single stringed bass, made from a 5 gallon drinking water container, a large piece of bamboo, and a piece of nylon twine recovered from the construction of our camp.  They also put in some lyrics in Bahasa Indonesia - "bule bule, bule gila!" which means "white foriegners, crazy white foreigners" - which of course was received with rousing applause and laughter.

Frode, our Nordic campaigner really put himself out there.  He did a three act performance: the native forest, forest destruction, and then forest recovery, sung by a cat.  Yes a cat.  He was backed up by JJ and Cedar.  My face hurt from laughter after that one.

Rob Taylor then did a re-enactment of his punk rock days from twenty years ago.  He played so hard that JJ had to take some time to re-tune his guitar.

After this we had a story told in bahasa by Yusef, from Papua, translated by Findi.

Richi, our camp manager from Jakarta, then stepped up and had us all play a game, based on the concept of forest fires, that had us all running around and knocking each other over, and laughing like crazy.

Arti, our Argentinean video editor, played an electronic song that he made earlier in the day on his Mac computer.  It was pretty impressive, especially when considering he only put about 30 minutes into it.  Arti followed this with an awesome 1 minute video about our action in the forest from a few days ago, where we hung a giant banner that read "Save Our Forest, Save Our Climate".

Our last performance was a slide show put to music by our photographer, Oka.  It was lots of personal shots, and it was great to see how much we'd actually accomplished in the past 2 weeks.  We got to see lots of fun shots that we normally don't get a chance to see - the ones that don't make it to our website, on TV, or in the newspaper.

At the end I handed out the prizes to all who participated.  The prizes, or "hadiah", included two bottles of soda, which is a very hot commodity here at camp, a coupon for a 15 minute massage from our campmate Hengke, a coupon for two free hours of solar charging, for phones or laptops, which also is in high demand here.  And finally, the grand prize was a free paragliding flight in Byron Bay Australia, courtesy of Cedar.  The coupon was non-transferrable, and didn't include transportation to Byron Bay.

It was a late night for the camp, but it didn't seem that anyone minded.  In fact, there's been a request for encore performances.  So we'll see if that happens in the coming weeks.  We're actually getting busier every day, so it's not something that I can really think about now - but I think we may have some mini-performances in the coming evenings.

Stay tuned for exciting things - I'm moving from the Communications side of things to more of a laborer, so I'm looking forward to that.  I'll write more when I can.

Hayden

I get the sense that people are interested in the staff behind the curtain here at Greenpeace so here is one story of an inspiring forest defender.  If you receive the quarterly newsletter you've met Jeremy before and should enjoy this update. 

 

Last week Forest Campaigner Jeremy Paster was awarded the People and Planet award by Rainforest Action Network (RAN).  Here is an excerpt from the event as covered by Branden at RAN.

 
"And finally, a surprise award, for Jeremy Paster. Jeremy was one of the key organizers of the ‘99 WTO protest and has been a great friend to RAN and the movement. He was diagnosed in 2006 with advanced metastatic prostate cancer at the age of 35. He was recovering from an operation when we announced this award - to recognize his great contributions to the world through his activism, his photography, his work and his spirit. RAN ED Michael Brune took the stage with Jeremy’s friends, Ilyse Hogue, John Sellers and Marianne Manilov. The three of them managed to gain the attention of the room - 650 people mind you - with Jeremy’s story. And while holding the space by telling stories of Jeremy (which I invite them to post on this blog) Jeremy was racing to the venue, having “escaped from UCSF”, in his own words. And after quite a few emotionally charged minutes, Jeremy made it to the party. Escorted by friends and family he was wheeled to the stage and stood to accept his award. And in accepting it, his humility and grace honored us. We are so very blessed by this very very fine man. If you’d like to learn more about Jeremy, visit www.jeremypaster.com. You can make a donation to help offset his significant medical expenses here: http://jeremypaster.com/donate/" 

Congrats Jeremy! 

 

The following posting is from Hayden who is at our Forest Defenders Camp. Learn more about the camp and threats to Indonesian forests.

So today is a pretty relaxed day, other than having about 100 people at camp today for day 4 of the fire fighting training (and on a side note I got totally shafted and was on dish duty yesterday and had to help wash what seemed like hundreds of dishes.)

The highlight so far today is that I just sat down for an interview with QQ.com, the fifth largest web site in the world (and the largest in China.)  I was a bit circumspect as to why she wanted to interview me, of all people (as opposed to Hapsoro, our Indonesian forest campaigner, or Rob Taylor, the overall logistics coordinator) and Yifang, our Chinese forest campaigner didn't help at all when she supposed that she wanted to interview me because I'm "an attractive and charming American" - the internationals in the room thought that a bit of an oxymoron. Regardless of the reason I wasn't about to turn down an opportunity to tell 120 million people about why this campaign is important, and about how China and the U.S. are partners in leading the world in creating pressures that lead to deforestation - and how all of that links to global warming.  I definitely hit all the important points, as to what she chooses to write, that remains to be seen.  I wish I could read Chinese (or Mandarin, I suppose.)

I definitely got the feeling that some of my more assertive comments won't make it to print.  Being such a large website their content is watched closely by the Chinese government, and any criticism of the government must be balanced with compliments.  Needless to say, I didn't have too many good comments about China's role in forest destruction, other than that they are beginning to do a decent job of protecting it's own forests.  And of course I linked the U.S. into that equation, as China is many times just the middleman for manufacturing of products that end up in American homes and buildings.

On a completely unrelated note, half the camp was awoken last night by a blood curdling scream.  We all got up to look for the source for the scream, but to no avail.  I think it was just someone having a vivid and vibrant nightmare, not a too atypical side effect of taking Chloroquine, an anti-malarial.  It took me awhile to get back to sleep after that. Especially with the chainsaw snoring resonating from the women's sleeping quarters.

That's all I have for today.  We're busy unloading materials for an upcoming activity that we're working towards.  I'll write more about that next week.

Hayden

The following posting is from Hayden who is at our Forest Defenders Camp. Learn more about the camp and threats to Indonesian forests.

 

We all got up this morning at 4:30.  The group of climbers wanted to  make it to the edge of the palm oil concession without being noticed by the workers, or the security patrol.  The edge of the concession, or what we call "the forest wall" is where the burned clearcut ends and where the native forest begins.  However this native forest is in the process of being cleared for more palm oil.  The "forest wall" is just how far they've gotten in clearing the forest.

To edge of the concession is about 4km away, but is clearly visible from our fire lookout tower.  Rob and I were up in the tower at 5am as the team left.  My responsibility was to run communications for the climb team, and also for the para motors, which were scheduled for a flyover at 8am.  My new title, as Rob told me yesterday, is "Communications Hardware Coordinator", so now I'm no longer just the U.S. campaigner/volunteer.   GPI is even putting up a photo of me with that title, apparently.

So, back to the action.  The team, of all Indonesians, hung a huge banner (36'x30') from two trees accross the road that runs into the forest from the concession.  Shortly afterward Cedar flew over in the para-motor, this time with the wing that has the Greenpeace logo on it. We got some great images, and the entire event went remarkably smooth. No conflict with the workers at all.  And as of this writing the banner is still hanging.  We decided to leave it there as a parting gift.

In other happenings, we dug up some maps of the area, and I found out that the river that runs by our camp has it's headwaters in the hills, not near town, so now I've started to go for swims in the afternoon (I can't go in the evening, as the local residents believe that if people swim in the evenings, and have fun, that bad things may come.)  Today I went for a swim with JJ, Frode, and Hengke, and we had a great time, diving off the dock.  As we were getting out a boat arrived that was unloading about 80 huge bags of sand.  We did the Indonesian thing to do, which was to pitch in and help carry the bags of sand up the dock to land.  So we worked for about 20 minutes, and these guys were really surprised and entertained by 3 "bule" (white foreigners) helping them carry heavy loads up the dock.

And that's all I have for now for an update.  Stay tuned.  The most exciting stuff is yet to come.  Also, I'm happy to report that there aren't any lingering effects from the lightning strike.  I'm fine.

Hayden

Yesterday evening, a very powerful lightning storm came through camp. As we though it was winding down I was crouched on the porch of the warehouse talking with one of our pilots, Cedar, when a lightning bolt struck a tree about 30 feet from us.  A massive shock came up through my feet and into my legs.  It was very painful, without a doubt the most powerful electric shock I've ever received.  I looked at Cedar, and said some things that shouldn't be put into print, and then asked if we're okay.  Both of us were shaken up, to say the least, and kind of stumbled back to the main building.  It turns out that a lot of people felt a shock to some degree.  Suzette, who was in the communications room (and my bedroom) writing an email got a major shock.  It turns out that the electric charge likely came up through a ground wire into the room and burned into some of the floorboards.  Also, our inverter, which converts the battery power (charged by our solar panels) from 12 volts into 220, was completely fried.  So we're without power for some of our most essential electronics.  But we're working fast to get a new one (and I'm typing fast, since this computer is running on battery power.)

So yesterday was a very exciting day and I think we're all lucky that no one was seriously hurt. And now I have yet another story to tell when I get home.

Hayden

Today was finally the day we got in the air.  Yesterday we had to call off the launch of our two para-motors due to some shaky weather.  This morning we were all up before 6am, waiting on standby for the weather conditions to become right for flying.

After a lot of waiting Cedar took off from our makeshift runway, which is on a small clearing in the oil palm concession.  I was acting as the tower for the flight.  I was up in our fire spotting tower with a couple radios and a high powered scope to keep track of our pilots.

Cedar flew over the concession and got some excellent aerial photos of the forest destruction, and the native forest that borders the oil palm area.  He also got a pretty sweet aerial shot of our camp.  Though, after taking a look at the photo, we all realized that we need to do a little cleanup of the construction materials lying around camp.

An hour and a half later Cedar touched down.  It was a great first flight.  He didn't spot any peatland fires, but he only saw a fraction of the oil palm concession.  Tomorrow Cedar, and our other pilot JJ, intend on flying much farther into the forest clearing in order to spot and illegally set peatland fires.

That's all the updates I have for now.  It's still hot here, there are still a lot of bugs, and every day a cold beer is sounding better and better.

Hayden

This morning we got up early and took a walk into the concession area to do a show and tell to the new campaigners that just arrived.  They toured the forest destruction caused by conversion of forests to palm oil plantations.  We took a walk through the wasteland of the charred remnants of trees and saw the network of canals that have been dug to drain the peatland.  Yifang and Frode, from our Chinese and Nordic offices had many questions, and the tour, not surprisingly, was sobering.  I've attached a photo which can give you some idea of what it looks like out there.

Our camp borders the concession area.  The local village, Kuala Cenaku, has contested the rights of Duta Palma, the company clearing the forest and planting the oil palms, saying that they have historical rights to the land.  And if it were up to them, they would've preferred that it stay as native forest.  Tragically, the forest next to their village is being logged and burned, and it continues to be logged today.  From our fire observation tower we can see the edge of the forest clearing. We're using every means we have to put a stop to this forest conversion and all other peatland forest conversion, until a region-wide environmental sound policy can be implemented.

Meanwhile our camp is nearing completion.  Nearly all the walkways are built, John and I spent all day yesterday treating the water so that it is safe enough to wash and cook with, and we only have a few finishing touches to put on it for the camp to be fully completed.  Some people have noted that it's beginning to look like a sort of "eco village", especially with the addition of some campaigners who spend some of the day "lazing around" in the shade under the trees typing things on their laptop computers.  We've also had a lot of new arrivals lately and we're nearly at capacity.  In fact, we've decided to build an annex to the main sleeping quarters to accommodate even more people who will be arriving in the coming weeks. The camp has really taken on a more active vibe.  Evenings are filled with meetings, planning sessions, and even English and Bahasa Indonesia classes so we can help bridge the language gap among us.

In addition to the campaigners, we've also had some guitar players join us, who also happen to know how to pilot a para-motoring machine.  A few evenings we've had late night guitar playing sessions and stayed up until the very late hour of 10:30.

That's all I have for an update now.  We have to do a quick cleanup, as the village chief is paying another visit to our camp this afternoon.

More to come....

Hayden
at the Forest Defender Camp, Sumatra, Indonesia

I'm finally back in town after 4 days and 3 nights at the Forest Defenders camp.  I've really begun to enjoy being out there.  The main building is complete, and we've installed all of the lighting (powered by solar, of course) so we can stay up later, working, talking, etc.    There's still a ways to go to complete the camp, but it's looking good.  As John, our tech guru says, it's really beginning to look like the television set of "Survivor Sumatra" 

I've begun to get a little involved with the design.  A building in front of the Belair Adat (the main building, and I really have no idea how it's spelled)  was being built.  and they were going to clear out some very small trees/shrubs.  After I threatened to chain myself to one of the shrubs, the architect yielded, and now it has become a nice deck area, with some small trees coming up through the coconut wood to provide shade.  Now we've planned to get some party lights (or what we may call "christmas lights&quot and string them on the trees for evening lighting. 

 This morning I went on a hike into the concession area (the area of forest that the company Duta Palma is clearing for palm plantations) and we surveyed some canals that were dug in order to drain the peatland.  This is a crucial step in clearing the land.  After the canals are dug in the peat (that in this area is many meters thick) the water drains out, irreversibly drying out the peat.  The dried peat is then ready for burning, which as I mentioned earlier, releases enormous amounts of greenhouse gases into the air.

 We were measuring water flow and water depth of the canals.  While I could surmise many reasons, I honestly can't tell you exactly why we were doing this, as it was a request from some science geeks back in Europe.   But it was very interesting to see the clearing process first-hand after reading so much about it. 

A few notes about the Forest Defenders Camp: 

 There are so many insects there, it's incredible.  Now that we have the lighting installed for evenings, we've become extremely popular with our six legged neighbors.  Probably the most noteworthy are the Rhinoceros Beetles.  They are freakin' huge!  And when they dive bomb into camp, they circle the lights and are the size of small birds.  They slam into anything in their path, including you.  I got a great picture of one who visited us two nights ago.  They really do have horns similar to a rhinoceros. 

 Also, an update on my bag, which on my last entry I mentioned was stuck in Taipei.  Well, it finally arrived and was kindly delivered to me by Hengki and Yusef, two new forest activists who just arrived from Papua.  I immediately popped my malaria medication, and I'm hoping that none of the first 100 mosquito bites I received were from malaria carriers.  I'm sure I'll be fine. 

 One more update:  I'm also now one of the camp medics.  Our camp doctor, Naki (who we endearingly refer to as Doogie Howser) is leaving for Idol Fitri.  So it's me and a local nurse who arrived today.  Funnily enough, within an hour of her arrival she ended up being my first patient.  She was unpacking her supplies and happened to burn her hand on a bottle of pure hydrogen peroxide (unlike the %1 or %2 solutions you buy over the counter) -  oh the irony.

 More to come...

 Hayden

Okay, here we go, my first blog, ever. I've already done some trash talking with my friend Kieran Mulvaney, who prides himself on his blogging abilities - so let's hope that I can pull off an interesting and informative blog.

I'm now sitting at our not quite complete Forest Defenders Camp in Riau Province, Sumatra, Indonesia. And I'm exhausted from a very long day of hard work.

What would possess someone to spend 5 days traveling, with almost no sleep, enduring 40 straight hours of spending time in airports and on airplanes, followed my more airplanes, followed by a death defying drive across Riau Province, to arrive at a town that is still a 3 hour boat ride away from the camp? To save the Peatland Forests, of course.

The peatland forests need to be saved, but not just to protect all the cute little (and huge) creatures in it. They actually need to be saved to save us, humans. Peatland forests are an enormous carbon store. And these forests are being converted to oil palm plantations at an alarming rate. And when this conversion occurs, they burn the peatland forest and all that carbon that has been stored is released into the atmosphere as a Greenhouse Gas, Carbon Dioxide. This forest conversion has helped to propel Indonesia into third place in Greenhouse Gas emitters, behind the world's largest polluters, China and the United States. I find that fact staggering, considering that Indonesia isn't a huge fossil fuel hog, like its co-polluters. Who knew that saving our forests could be just as important as switching to clean energy when it comes to stopping Global Warming?

So now you know why we're here. Now let me tell you a little about what the camp is like. First of all, it's hot. Really hot. They say it's been getting up into the low to mid 40's. So that's well over 100 degrees. And did I mention the humidity? It's not easy building a camp in this kind of heat. But I can't complain too much, I've only been here one day. And it was a very long day, with lots of work. I helped install the solar array, and we finally got power to the camp, thanks to the sun, and a lot of hard work. I'm writing this email now using some of the energy we produced after 1pm, when we finally got all the wires wired (and narrowly avoided a 6 inch long scorpion, which decided to hang out behind our battery bank.)

The camp is coming together, though we still have a ways to go. We have the main meeting house and bunk quarters nearly complete. We got the roof on our kitchen today, and our fire-spotting tower got a little taller. We also now have solar power, as I mentioned earlier, and tomorrow we'll get our water tank installed, make our solar installation more permanent, and keep plugging away on the buildings to get them finished.

It's Ramadhan, and most people are about to break fast. In other words, it's time for dinner. I'll keep the updates coming as the camp progresses, and hopefully send along some photos of our progress. And remember, when the camp is finished, that is when our real work begins. I have many more stories to tell, just from my first few days (did I mention that my bag still hasn't arrived at the airport?) but it's already been a 13 hour work day, so I think I'll call it a day.

Hayden

Kimberly-Clark, the world’s the largest tissue company, destroys ancient forests to make its disposable products.  They film Kleenex commercials by inviting people to sit on a couch in famous public places and “let it out” with a fake psychologist.  Sounds goofy, right?  Also sounds like a great opportunity for creative activism!

When Kleenex came to Times Square in New York, Greenpeace activists infiltrated the shoot and shut down filming with a banner.  The video is a classic (watch it here).  And, like any good classic, it deserves a sequel.

This time we were in Chicago.  It was a beautiful day for a ball game.  Fans decked out in blue and red Chicago Cubs gear were streaming towards historic Wrigley Field, eager to watch their team advance to the major league baseball playoffs.

Meanwhile, in a parking lot across from Wrigley Field, a Kimberly-Clark advertising crew was setting up another Kleenex commercial.  They had thought of everything…except the irony of trying to sell Kleenex at a Cubs game while clear-cutting cub and bear habitat in the Boreal Forest.

What a set up!  It was almost too easy for undercover Greenpeace volunteers to throw curve balls at the Kleenex crew.

What happened next?  Watch the video!

Pssst: If you have a YouTube account, rate the video, save it to your favorites list, and leave a comment for Kleenex to see.

You can read more, see photos and take action here.

Share the video and spread the word about Kleenex and Kimberly-Clark with family and friends!

As you read this, chainsaws and bulldozers are laying into huge swaths of ancient forests – illegally – across the globe.  More than a few trees here and there, the growing problem of illegal logging is much more serious than most people realize.

Take Indonesia for example.  Indonesia got itself into the Guinness Book of World Records for the worst forest destruction rate in the history of the world: about 4.5 million acres a year.  80% of that logging, or 3.6 million acres, is thought to be illegal.  That’s enough criminal clearcutting to cover the state of Delaware every year – twice!

With that much dirty logging comes a lot of dirty money that fuels corruption, crime and gang activity.  The brutal dictator of Liberia, Charles Taylor, used illegal logging to fuel paramilitary forces and years of civil war in West Africa.  In Mexico this year, 21 year old Aldo Zamora, who worked to curb illegal logging in Zempoala National Park, was shot dead by criminal loggers.  Where there is illegal logging, you can bet there will be human rights abuses – these sad examples are just the tip of the iceberg.

Of course, wildlife suffers as well. In addition to destroying millions of acres of critical wildlife habitat every year, illegal logging roads bring poaching and illegal hunting of bush-meat into virgin forests.  The endangered orangutan has lost 80% of its forest habitat since the 1980s.  Illegal logging is responsible for much of that loss.  Without action now, orangutans could be extinct in the wild within 20 years.

Forest fires, both accidental and intentional, also accompany illegal logging, destroying habitat, releasing massive amounts of greenhouse gases and threatening the health of those living nearby.

The economic burden of illegal logging is enormous as well.  US jobs are lost as domestic logging companies are robbed of an estimated $1 billion a year due to illegal timber imports.  In developing nations, black-market timber robs local communities as cash flows to gangs and corrupt corporations.

The good news is, we have a real chance to do something about illegal logging.  Legislation in both the US House of Representatives and the Senate is poised to set up the first national safeguards against the import of illegal timber.  Isn’t it nice when there’s a light at the end of the tunnel?

Learn more about these bills and take action by clicking here.

With your help, we can put illegal logging in check.  That's worth a few clicks, right?

-Rolf

Since my last post about the Bush Administration and its cozy relationship with logging industry lobbyists, the “revolving door” between the two has spun again.

The latest whirl has Jan Poling, a high-level lawyer for the Forest Service, landing in the lap of the nation’s most powerful timber industry lobbying group – the American Forest and Paper Association (AF&PA).

As Poling takes her post as general counsel for AF&PA, she’ll run into lots of familiar faces.  There will be, of course, industry friends who kept her company during her stint at the Forest Service.  But there will also be Dave Tenny, Bush’s former “deputy undersecretary of agriculture for natural resources and environment” (does that title even fit on a business card?) who, like Poling, swapped his job at the Bush administration for one at AF&PA this year.

To bring the door back full circle, I’ll point out Dave Tenny’s new job at AF&PA – vice president of forestry and wood products – is the same one that Undersecretary of Agriculture Mark Rey held before Bush put him in charge of the Forest Service.

I think the revolving door is becoming more like one of those carnival rides where you spin and spin until the centrifugal forces stick you to the wall.  I love those rides.  But this one ain’t as much fun.  Rather than defying gravity, this ride has folks like Rey, Polling, and Tenny defying the public interest, sticking to the narrow ideology of the logging industry instead.

-Rolf

People of all political persuasions breathed a sigh of relief when Bush’s top political advisor and neo-con lightning rod Karl Rove recently announced his resignation from the White House.

For lovers of forests, that celebration may have come too soon!

Rove’s replacement, DC-insider Ed Gillespie, has made millions of dollars as a logging industry lobbyist for the past seven years.  In fact, one of the first well-heeled clients of Quinn Gillespie (his lobbying firm) was a logging industry group from British Columbia, Canada!

I’m guessing Mr. Gillespie isn’t a big fan of efforts to protect the Great Bear Rainforest.  And, he’s probably not super supportive of protecting the Boreal Forest either!

Now, only a fool would expect the Bush administration to suddenly embrace science-based, forward-thinking forest policies after Rove's departure.  After all, putting ideology before the public interest has become this administration’s trademark.  In some ways, Gillespie’s pick is just more business as usual from Bush and company.

Still, the revolving door between anti-conservation lobbyists and the Bush administration is spinning so fast, it's starting to make me dizzy.  I’m feeling queezy...is it 2008 yet?

-Rolf

News Flash!
The Bush administration misrepresented science to promote an ideological agenda favoring special interests that puts our environment at risk!

Yeah, I know this isn't exactly a surprise, but it just happened again.

Bush’s Fish and Wildlife Service is in the process of “revising” (read: ripping apart) the recovery plan for the Northern Spotted Owl – an endangered creature that depends on old-growth forests to survive.  Everyone knows that to help endangered wildlife, you need to protect habitat.  Nothing can survive without a place to live.

So, with the owl plummeting towards extinction, the obvious thing to do is boost protections for old-growth forests, right?  With breath-taking disregard for science and common sense, the Bush administration proposed logging more old-growth forests as part of its owl recovery plan.  In fact, they propose buzz-sawing about 25% of the owl’s remaining critical habitat.

And that’s supposed to help?

Now, I’m not sure why they thought they could get away with this.  In fact, when they commissioned an independent science panel to comment on their plan, the scientists said the Bush administration “failed to make use of the best available science and, in fact, appears to have selectively cited from the available science to justify a reduction in habitat protection.”

That’s polite, scientist-talk for: “Are you kidding?  You guys cheated to make excuses for more clear-cutting!”

Another review had this back-to-the-drawing-board feedback for the Bush administration: “Our main recommendation to (Fish and Wildlife) is to scrap the draft recovery plan, convene a panel of independent scientists and ecologists to redo the recovery plan and place on hold related forest policy decisions…”

Ouch!  That's a serious scientific slap-down.

The scientists have had their say; now it’s your chance.  Click here to send your comments on Bush's old-growth logging, uh, I mean “owl recovery” plan by this Friday, August 24th.

To read the official plan, click here.

And don’t worry – you don’t need to be an owl expert to comment on these plans.  In fact, if you passed 5th grade science, it seems you’re way out ahead of the Bush administration!

-Rolf 

The NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) held its summer convention in Austin last week.  Hundreds of companies showcasing everything from clarinets to karaoke machines set up shop in Austin’s cavernous convention center.  In the long rows of exhibitor booths were truckloads of instruments – like pianos and guitars – made from high-quality tone woods.

While most people never think about where the wood for musical instruments comes from, instrument manufacturers certainly do.  Many companies report that music quality wood is becoming tougher to get as forests worldwide are clearcut for toilet paper and two by fours.  This is where the Music Wood campaign comes in.

The Music Wood campaign is as common sense as it is creative.  It brings together musical instrument manufacturers to encourage their suppliers to produce sustainable Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified wood.  This conserves forests, secures premium prices for timber companies, and guarantees a long-term supply of quality wood.  In short, everyone wins.

 

Showing true environmental leadership, guitar companies Gibson, Taylor, Martin and Fender are leading the charge.  The fronts of their acoustic guitars, called “soundboards,” are usually made of Sitka spruce – a relatively rare tree that grows in a thin strip of rainforest along the Pacific coast.  Most of the fine-grained, knot-free Sitka spruce wood needed for soundboards was logged long ago.

The lion’s share of remaining music-quality Sitka spruce supply in the US is coming from one company in southeast Alaska.  Rather than liquidating their remaining old-growth forests, Gibson, Martin, Taylor and Fender are giving the company incentives and support to shift to FSC certified operations.

While the Music Wood campaign is still young, it’s attracting a lot of attention.  The buzz and momentum created from our work in Alaska could lead to success with other music wood tree species like rosewood, mahogany and ebony.

Whether you’re a lover of music, forests or both, you should check out the Music Wood website.  Through its interactive features, you can learn more about the woods used in musical instruments, FSC certification and forests across the world: www.musicwood.org

Before high-tech monitoring systems, miners brought canaries into coal mines to detect dangerous levels of methane and carbon monoxide gases.  When the sensitive birds fell ill or died, miners knew they could be next and quickly left the mines.

Birds aren’t used in mines anymore, but they can still help us figure out if there’s something wrong in our environment.  A recent headline-grabbing report shows that even some common birds – the kind Americans are used to seeing in their backyards and nearby natural areas – are disappearing at alarming rates.

The report lists twenty common birds whose numbers have dropped by an average of 68% since 1967.  A big reason for the declines is habitat destruction, especially in the Boreal Forest.  No surprise there.  About half of North America’s bird species depend on the Boreal Forest for habitat.  As clearcuts and logging roads slice and dice the Boreal, migrating birds wrestling with other problems like global warming may be pushed over the edge.

Of course, beloved backyard birds don’t need to go the way of the dodo. The solution is pretty simple.  Most of the logging in the Boreal ends up in the United States.  And most of that wood is used to make paper products – things like Kleenex tissues.  If enough of us speak up, Kimberly-Clark, the world’s largest tissue maker and a big user of Boreal wood, would have to change its ways.

By using recycled paper and fiber from Forest Stewardship Council certified wood, Kimberly-Clark could protect sensitive bird habitat and blaze a responsible trail for other tissue companies to follow.

While birds can sing, they can’t make phone calls or write emails.  That’s your job.  So, go to the Kleercut.net campaign site and speak up for the birds!

-Rolf 

When you think of roads, do your National Forests come to mind?  Maybe they should.  The sad truth is that there are more miles of roads in our National Forests than in the Interstate Highway System – enough to circle the Earth seventeen times!  All those roads and decades of clearcutting have made wild, roadless forests rare jewels...and even more critical to conserve.

Millions of have weighed in on this issue, and the consensus is clear: Americans want their last roadless wildlands protected.  The trouble is, the Bush Forest Service isn’t listening.  Since the Roadless Area Conservation Rule was approved in 2001, they have fought to drive chainsaws, bulldozers and drills into our last wildlands.  I guess that’s what happens when you put a guy like Mark Rey, a former logging industry lobbyist, in charge of the Forest Service.  Fox in the hen house anyone?

Here’s the good news.  Last week was a rough one for stump-lovers like Rey.  On June 8th, a US District judge slapped down an attempt by the State of Wyoming to bring a nationwide ban on the Roadless Rule back from the dead.  That means the Roadless Rule remains in effect, and 58 million acres of our best wildlands are safe from roadbuilding, industrial logging and oil and gas drilling.

The Wyoming ruling is expected to be appealed, and more court challenges are already on the way from anti-forest forces.  This is nothing new.  A dizzying swarm of lawsuits has buzzed around the Roadless Rule for years, leaving its fate in legal limbo.  When will it stop?  Maybe soon.

A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers recently introduced legislation to make the Roadless Rule into law.  That would make it immune to lawsuits and permanently safeguard wild forests from Alaska to Alabama.

So, don’t just sit there – contact your members of Congress and tell them to get on board with the Roadless Area Conservation Act of 2007.  The sooner we pass this bill, the sooner we can give Mark Rey and his minions something better to do…

While campaigns such as Musicwood (see blog 2 below and here) have been working with guitar manufacturers and loggers in Alaska to protect ancient forests from unsustainable logging practices, Pacific Northwest Maples are being illegally logged and turned into guitars.

As an article in the Seattle Times notes, “All around Western Washington, from backyards to fragile stream banks, grand old big-leaf maples are being felled and dismembered to feed a black market born of an insatiable demand for the hardwood and its eye-catching whorls and ripples.” These maple thieves are cutting these trees, selling “pieces hardly larger than a shoebox, neatly carved from the base of the log.”

If a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, it’s still a crime. And the guitar you see for sale might very well be part of the crime scene.

Last week in the New York Times there was a very small world brief titled: Office for Native Claims Urged. In 1995 a Ojibwa Native Canadian, Dudley George, was killed by a police sniper while at a land claim protest. Twelve years after George’s death the inquiry report recommended the government establish a land claims agency to resolve the thousands of land claims in Canada.

My question- did it really take an inquiry to alert the Canadian government to the many problems surrounding land claim disputes? For the past few years Greenpeace and dozens of other environmental and native organizations have been waving the flag about poor land management practices. The Canadian Government is aware that the Boreal Forest is vital to the climate and wildlife. The Canadian Government is aware that areas are being logged before land disputes are settled. The Canadian Government is aware that less than 10% of the Boreal Forest is protected . Just last month 1,500 scientists signed a letter asking the Canadian Government to act.

This is no longer a question of awareness it is a question of action. Why has the Canadian Government failed to protect this resource vital to the entire planet? Because it is far too profitable to hand over the land to American companies interested in mining and logging. As we know from the Kleercut campaign companies like West Fraser are sent in to clearcut so that Kimberly-Clark’s appetite for cheap pulp is met. We can all buy virgin Kleenex at the store because the land in Canada is up for grabs to American companies.

Will the Canadian Government create an office to resolve native claims disputes? No. It's already decided and the land is up for grabs to the highest bidder. Just as we've seen recently with climate policy, the Canadian Government seems comfortable following the Bush Administration in a race to the bottom. We may still be in the lead when it comes to bad environmental policy but the Canadian Government is right on our tail.

Neither me nor my mom can remember the 1960s—I wasn’t born then, and she . . .—but we both can tell you that much of the music we love from this period is revolutionary and radical and life-changing. The rock & roll that gets me up in the morning, and keeps me going throughout the day, is cutting-edge and inspiring. It is now, and it was when it was first released, both connected to its times, and way ahead of its times.

My infatuation with music and the incredible power it has is one of the reasons why Greenpeace’s Musicwood Campaign is so exciting to me. This campaign is partnering with the music industry to protect threatened forest habitats and safeguard the future of the trees critical to making musical instruments. Musicwood is literally using music to bring about a hugely positive and radical change not only for Southeastern Alaskan forests, but—as is the case with most environmental work— for all of us.

Greenpeace and musical instrument manufacturers are working together to increase the availability of traditional woods used by musical instrument manufacturers that can be certified to the exacting management standards of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). Musicwood is demonstrating, one species at a time, that there is a strong and growing market for well-managed, FSC certified wood. This is important because currently, there are no FSC certified forests in the entire state of Alaska and the predominant logging practice remains clear-cutting. Transitioning private land suppliers over to the FSC system will ensure a well-managed supply of Sitka spruce for the long term, meeting the needs of manufacturers while greatly benefiting Alaskan Native communities. Musicwood’s goal is to create a demand by consumers and businesses for FSC certified "good wood" as the only acceptable music wood from the North American coastal temperate rainforest.

Want to read more?
Read the article in the New York Times  (it also appeared in the International Herald Tribune)
Learn about the FSC

A few weeks ago I was asked to explain what I do as a Greenpeace Forest Campaigner and found the question tougher to answer than you might imagine.  If you're interested in my response by way of lengthy story I've posted it below. It's also a decent way to get a sense of the devastation being wreaked on the Boreal so that we can blow our nose on Kleenex.

..... 

It smells similar to burnt hair. Burnt hair and fumes from a congested stretch of LA highway.  Ahead of me is what looks like an empty construction site complete with the dirt and the deeply scarred ruts from the large tires of earthmoving machines.

It’s my first time in the part of the Boreal Forest in Alberta, Canada.  The forest that is one of the largest unspoiled forest ecosystems left on Earth at 1.4 billion acres.  The forest that fifty percent of the 700 North American bird species depend on for survival.  I shouldn’t say it’s my first time in the Boreal, really it’s my first time visiting an empty stretch where the forest stood until it was pulped for toilet paper.  Companies like West Fraser bring in the machines to raze everything so that they can sell ancient ecosystems as pulp to Kimberly-Clark.  This is the pulp we all flush down the toilet as Cottonelle enhanced with Aloe, Kleenex Anti-Viral or Scott Extra Soft.

I spent the last hour moving through the filtered shade of tall trees surrounded by the scuttle of forest animals.  But now I’m standing in a clearcut.  The earth is still warm from the machines that overheat as they cut ten inches from the base of a tree: one tree after another, for hours upon hours.  The sun is too bright and there’s a glare that forces me to squint to review the debris.  There are ruts in the mud, snapped underbrush, the sideways splinter of a tree that was incorrectly caught in the machine, leaked oil stains, a broken sapling that was unable to escape a heavy-tread tire, and moss already shriveling in the bright sunlight.  I’m hot and sticky as I look across the brown where the heat is blurring my vision rising from the earth the wave heat does from pavement on a hot summer day.  This is the forest at its most vulnerable, a part of our world that until recently relied on the protection of ancient towering stands.  It’s uncomfortable to view this exposed underbelly, but this is my job.

I work for Greenpeace as a Forest Campaigner and my job is to make sure companies like Kimberly-Clark are held accountable to environmental standards.  The tough part of the job is to know that alone I can’t work fast enough.  As fast as we successfully organize customers and shareholders to pressure the company to change, machines move quickly across the forest. From time to time I am sent to inspect the damage. I confirm that Kimberly-Clark (the makers of Kleenex, Scott and Cottonelle brands) is still supporting the decimation of intact forests here in the Boreal and elsewhere in the world.

The kicker is that clearcutting doesn’t have to happen.

When Kimberly-Clark declares it is too hard to use recycled paper in Kleenex, they are really saying clearcutting is too cheap and too easy.

I’m standing in an empty space the size of 80 soccer fields and it feels more like the plains of Arizona.  The Boreal Forest here is completely gone and despite myths of replanting- the Boreal Forest here is irreplaceable.  Every year Kimberly-Clark prints a Forest Fact Sheet to sing the praises of their environmental deeds.  And this clearcut is a model of  the sustainable forestry Kimberly-Clark champions.   This is what happens when a company allows forest management certifications other than FSC.

If you’re asking what FSC is, there is no reason to let Kimberly-Clark confuse you. FSC stands for Forest Stewardship Council that was created by environmental leaders to serve as a check on companies that harvest forests.  The FSC certification means that someone other than the company has verified that wood coming out of a forest was harvested in a sustainable way.  Kimberly-Clark allows other certifications created by industry to promote the illusion that they are sustainable.  The clearcut I’m standing is considered a certified cut.

These clearcuts are wasteful. They make our world warmer and evict animals that are then forced to compete with other animals for new homes; animals like woodland caribou, bear and migratory birds.  Most people don’t know that 33% of the entire North American population of the American Robin depends on the Boreal for nesting or breeding.  As do 18% of Pileated Woodpeckers, 9% of Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds, 13% of Baltimore Orioles, 15% of BlueJays, 16% of Bald Eagles, 27% of Magpies, 36% of Bank Swallows, 46% of Whooping Cranes, 80% of Juncos, 83% of the Great Grey Owl population.  All these birds depend on the Boreal for the survival of their species.

The robin you watch hopping around the lawn every morning before you go to work depends on the Boreal Forest.  I’ll give you a minute to think about the brand of toilet paper under the sink in your bathroom.  And the thousands of pallets of your brand at the WalMart or Safeway distribution centers. If it’s a Kimberly-Clark brand, if it’s not recycled, your last purchase may have just evicted that Robin in your yard.  This season that happy little guy may be without breeding grounds.  

To avoid evicting thousands of migratory birds, including the American Robin in your yard, Baltimore Orioles or Bald Eagles there are easy steps you can take. Next time you’re at the store, flip the package over and buy the toilet paper with the recycled symbol that means paper made from paper. Avoid all Kimberly-Clark products: Kleenex, Scott, Huggies, Depend, Kotex and Cottonelle. Once you’ve made the change, tell your friends to do the same.

Once you’ve removed Kimberly-Clark from your shopping list, you can consider doing more. Look for recycled content in everything you buy and ask grocery stores to carry more recycled products. There are great alternatives out there: Seventh Generation, Marcal, Cascades, Earth First, Trader Joe’s and Green Forest.   Support the Greenpeace Kleercut Campaign financially so that we can continue to pressure the company to change using creative tactics, large customer contract cancellations, organized shareholder pressure, and awareness raising advertisements. If you own or work at a small business you can join our Forest Friendly pledge to avoid making purchases that impact our ancient forests. Let the company know that you think Kleenex needs to increase the amount of recycled content and FSC certified pulp in their tissues, that you feel irritated, frustrated or devastated at the use of our ancient forests for toilet paper and disposable tissue.

As a Greenpeace Forest Campaigner standing in a clearcut I only have one question for the Kimberly-Clark Corporation and their customers.  Is it really worth trading the ability forests have to mitigate global warming, worth trading the oxygen we breathe, or worth the silence in your backyard when you’re favorite songbirds have been impacted, just for soft Kleenex?

    Many people do environmental work to make the world a better place for their children to live in. Imagine, then, what it must be like for a prominent environmental activist to loose one of his children because of his and his child’s environmental work.
Earlier this month, this is exactly what happened to Ildefonso Zamora, a Mexican indigenous environmental leader in the Great Water Forest.
    Because of their environmental work, Ildefonso and his two sons (ages 21 and 16), have received many threats from timber gang members. On May 15th, Ildefonso’s two sons were ambushed while they were traveling with relatives. One son was shot and is now stable condition. He identified the attackers— 2 local loggers whose father, Feliciano Encarnacion, is one of the main leaders of the logger gangs from this area. The other son died the night of the attack.
    Ildefonso has worked against illegal logging in his community since 1998. Despite his work, authorities have not taken measures to stop the loggers. According to the Mexican Federal Bureau of Environmental Protection (PROFEPA), the areas of Lagunas de Zempoala and Huitzilac have been identified as one of the 15 critical regions of Mexico due to illegal logging. Together, these areas account for 60 per cent of the illegal logging in the country.
In April 2006, Ildefonso and Greenpeace informed PROFEPA about illegal logging in the Great Water Forest. As a result, the local PROFEPA office began monitoring the area, making raids and arresting many loggers. In November of that year, the Public Prosecutor requested 47 arrest warrants against loggers. These orders were denied by a judge, who argued that there were not enough elements to determine if a crime was committed.

TAKE ACTION: Send a message to President of Mexico Felipe Calderon Hinojosa demanding justice for these killings and better protection of forest activists

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    Unless you have your very own Greenpeace calendar, you might have missed this year’s International Migratory Bird Day
    Maybe you’re thinking: “Too bad for me. I’ll celebrate migratory birds next year.”
    Yes, but- maybe you won’t.
    Did you know that the Boreal Forest- one of our last ancient forests, and a forest that Kimberly-Clark continues to destroy- is home to hundreds of animal species? Moose, caribou, wolves, linx, bear, eagles, owls, hawks, AND 30 per cent of North America’s songbirds AND 40 per cent of its waterfowl. Do know just how important this habitat is to migratory birds?  Billions of birds breed in the Boreal forest each year. Many of these birds come from as far as South America every summer, and many also come from areas in lower North America. That means the White-throated Sparrow or Swainson’s thrush you hear on your walk through your local park travels up to the Boreal each year. It's a loooong commute, but these birds do it. In fact, nearly half of North American bird species breed in the Boreal. The report, “The importance of the Boreal Forest to birds,” by Dr. Peter Blancher, Bird Studies Canada states “this forest is of immense global importance to landbirds, especially during the spring and summer when billions of landbirds rely on Boreal nesting grounds.” Yet clear-cutting of the Boreal forest for products such as tissue and toilet paper is destroying habitat and nests of birds living in these forests. Will the birds that traveled south this fall have a forest to return to next spring?
    So now you’re thinking, “I’ve just got to take action.” Want to take more action?

    PS: All you bird people out there-- the above photo is of a "Boreal bird" but which one? I'll send a Greenpeace t-shirt to the first person who gets it right. Contact me by signing up for a Greenpeace blog!  

You already know about Kimberly-Clark's outrageous forestry practices and you're already outraged. What else can you do to send a clear message to the company that their behavior continues to be unacceptable and needs to be changed? Here's something that at first may seem like an odd idea: Vote!

That's right, you can vote Kimberly-Clark into Corporate Accountability International’s Corporate Hall of Shame. K-C is listed up there, right next to Ford, ExxonMobil and Halliburton (yikes, just typing those names gives me the shivers).
You can vote for three corporations that deserve to be inducted this year, and you can even post comments about why these corporations should be inducted. Tell your friends about it and why they should nominate K-C. Then check back in June to make sure we’re inducting K-C!

To vote, click here

    In  Rules for Radicals, published way back in 1972, the well-known community organizer  Saul Alinsky got really excited about this thing he called shareholder activism. Alinsky saw shareholder activism as being two-fold: organizations and individuals could use their shares (their stocks) in a company to make the company listen to their demands and organizational/individual shareholders could use their shares to help other organizations that wanted to talk with the company.
    Fast-forward to this year’s Kimberly-Clark’s annual shareholder meeting (its AGM). The scene is a fancy hotel conference room in Los Colinas, Texas. Enter K-C executives, K-C board members, K-C accountants. Enter Greenpeace Forest Campaigners, a woman who has traveled all the way from Alberta, Canada, a Harvard University student and K-C shareholders. Watch shareholder activism unfold.

 
Elizabeth Shope, Harvard Student


    At this year’s K-C AGM, socially responsible investment firms including Domini Social Investments, Calvert, Green Century Fund, The Basilian Fathers of Toronto and other major shareholders of K-C submitted a proposal on which K-C shareholders were asked to vote. The proposal asks the company to: “…prepare a report…assessing the feasibility of phasing out our company’s use of non-Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified fiber within 10 years” with an emphasis on increasing the use of recycled fiber and avoiding fiber sourced from certification schemes other than FSC. The resolution earned the support of a whopping $2 billion worth of K-C stock. By voting in favor of the resolution, K-C shareholders sent a strong message that K-C’s environmentally irresponsible behavior will not be tolerated.
    And what about the “Harvard student” and woman from Alberta, Canada casually mentioned in paragraph 2? Certainly there must have been a point in mentioning them earlier? Where will they come in? Right here. At the AGM, Helene Walsh, a representative of the Alberta Foothills Network spoke about the on-the-ground impacts of KC’s atrocious forestry policies. Harvard student Elizabeth Shope announced to K-C executives, shareholders and board members that she had successfully convinced Harvard to begin a phase-out of K-C products. (Read the article in the Harvard Crimson.)
    In that room, on that day, the sweat beads were dripping off the K-C executives’ faces. Did you just ask: Is this shareholder activism at its Saul Alinsky finest? I think you already know the answer.