There’s a secret that Kimberly-Clark does not want you to know: Every Kleenex tissue is made from ancient forests. In fact, the tissues contain no recycled fiber at all. None. Instead, Kleenex is made from trees up to 180 years old cut from ancient forests that are up to 10,000 years old. These forests are home to eagles, bears, foxes and endangered caribou that are losing more habitat with every box of Kleenex bought.

Despite mounting pressure Kleenex’s parent company, the Kimberly-Clark Corporation, has been unwilling to improve its practices, continuing to rely on paper and pulp made from clearcut Endangered forest, including North America's Boreal Forest.  Kimberly-Clark clears these ancient forests, essential in fighting climate change and providing home to wildlife like caribou, wolves, eagles and bears, to make products that are flushed down the toilet or thrown away.

We made an animation with famous artist Mark Fiore to show just how ridiculous Kimberly-Clark's new partnership with Pixar is. They're making Kleenex boxes with Wall-E on the side, nevermind that the film was about destroying the earth. Enjoy!

  

The NY Times is reporting today on a possible confirmation that the legendary Bigfoot is real. Two hunters claim they have found the hairy beast and then chose to store him in a refrigerator.  I wonder if the Big Guy frequents the Boreal Forest, where Kimberly-Clark harvests ancient virgin forest for their disposable products? If so, his home is disappearing.

SAN FRANCISCO — In the hairy and hoax-filled history of Bigfoot, those who believe in the mythical beast have offered up all manner of evidence, from grainy photos to hoarse recordings to tracks of those aforementioned feet.

But on Friday at a hotel in Palo Alto, Calif., a pair of Bigfoot hunters say they will present what they contend is the most definitive proof yet of an animal that science says does not exist: DNA evidence and photographs of a dead specimen they say they found in a remote swath of woods in northern Georgia. More here.

Update: Surprise! It's a hoax. Reuters is reporting that genetic testing shows the Bigfoot was really a human and an opossum. 

New update: Bigfoot Body Revealed To Be A Rubber Gorilla Suit.

Richard Brooks of Greenpeace Canada makes the list for the 50 Most Influential People in Pulp and Paper Today, according to RISI. Here's what they had to say about Richard:

14. Richard Brooks, Greenpeace

A group of citizens came together in 1971 to create Greenpeace. Their mission was to protest US nuclear testing off the coast of Alaska. These activists made history by bringing worldwide attention to the dangers of nuclear testing. The focus of the organization has now turned to other environmental issues, including targeting Kimberly Clark for their unwillingness to create a fiber policy that increases the use of recycled fiber. Richard Brooks is the coordinator of Greenpeace’s forest campaign in Canada, which aims to preserve intact forest areas, implement sustainable forestry and transform the forest products industry. He and his team have leveraged Greenpeace’s unique brand of markets mobilization and direct action campaigning to pressure some of the largest forest product companies in the world. Richard has brought international attention to the globally important Boreal Forest and the role that the pulp and paper sector plays in deciding its future.

Congrats, Richard.

--DJK

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some really great news out of Indonesia:

AMSTERDAM – The Indonesian province of Riau has pledged to halt the destruction of its forests and peatlands; a move that will prevent billions of tonnes of carbon from entering the atmosphere.

At a ceremony in the provincial capital Pekanbaru, Riau Governor Wan Abu Bakar announced the temporary ban, which will remain in place until a law is agreed. The move follows Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s pledge at the G-8 Summit in July to reduce carbon emissions from deforestation by 50 percent by 2009.

Indonesia is the world’s 3rd largest global warming polluter, mostly due to deforestation. In many cases, the forests of Indonesia are being cut down illegally to make way for palm plantations. Forest fires in Indonesia have been called the single largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world.

Aside from the direct impact a ban on deforestation in Indonesia will have on the amount of pollution being dumped into our atmosphere, it’s just nice to see that some of the world’s leaders actually made meaningful commitments to combatting global warming at the G8 summit. Other commitments made at that summit were not close to being ambitious enough to really tackle the enormity of the climate crisis we’re facing. It’s just nice to see some progress.

Yesterday at the Kimberly-Clark (K-C) facility in Roswell, GA, several Greenpeace activists met the employee lunch crowd with a message of sustainability. The grounds of this facility, the largest of K-C’s office complexes, are picturesque, pristinely manicured, complete with a centrally located pond and jogging track. It was gorgeously landscaped (in fact, we even saw the care-crew) with flowers, shrubs, and, yes, trees. Lots of trees. Big, beautiful, arching canopies cast leafy shade upon the campus nestled in the northern Atlanta suburbs. Yes, it is ironic that the world’s largest producer of Kleenex tissues, with a known history of unsustainable logging practices, has a campus so populated with trees.

And it also seems ironic that time and time again, Greenpeace has to reiterate to K-C the importance of using wood that has been sustainability logged and incorporating recycled fiber into their products. Obviously, they see and appreciate the beauty of nature. They understand that their employees value a work environment connected to the natural world. Yet they are not willing to put this practice into their tissue making.  

So, using the landscape to our advantage, a crew of Greenpeace activists deployed a boat into the pond at this Georgia facility. The teamwork was seamless; the boat was floating in the pond in mere minutes. Three activists, Nate Stellhorn (Austin Frontline), Suzahn Ebrahimian (DC Frontline), and Sheila Hanley (Austin, former GOT, former Frontline) paddled to the center of the pond and deployed three banners while reading aloud, through a bull-horn, the case study Greenpeace put out of K-C's mismanagement of the Kenogami Forest. Called Cut & Run, the case study exposes Kimberly-Clark’s 70-year history of sourcing fiber from the Kenogami Forest in Ontario, Canada, and tells the story of horrific forest degradation, social injustice towards indigenous tribes, and field reports of decreasing wolverine, caribou, and eagle populations — all the result of K-C producing their disposable products.

While the boat was deployed, several members of the team distributed fliers onto the cars of K-C execs. The fliers stated that producing tissues out of a limited resource is no longer acceptable or sustainable when products can be made containing recycled content. The fliers also invited K-C employees to ask their employer to be an environmental leader.

As the security was quite tight, six activists were brought to the Roswell Detention Center, but not before the message was delivered loud and clear, thanks to the bullhorns, that K-C needs to change its ways. The activists were tired and hungry by the time they were released from jail, but nonetheless happy and healthy.

We know deep down, somewhere, Kimberly-Clark cares about the environment. We saw it.

We are not deterred.


Until the ancient forests are protected,
Andrea

I recently wrote a post about an action we carried out that targeted a Kimberly-Clark (KC) Kleenex manufacturing facility. A few people wrote in the comments that they would like to know more about the company’s practices and why we’re targeting them. Tons of relevant information can be found in our report, Cut & Run, which we had on-hand at the action to pass out to KC employees and anyone else who wanted to know why we were there. The report documents KC’s complicity in the destruction of the Kenogami Forest, a Boreal forest in northern Ontario, Canada that was once directly managed by KC and still serves as a primary source of tree pulp for the company today.

Clearcuts currently stretch across nearly 27,000 acres of the Kenogami Forest thanks to KC’s logging practices. Worse, the company’s plans for the next few years include the logging of forests that are as much as two centuries old – to make products that are generally used once and then thrown away.

The commenters were specifically wondering about the company’s recycling practices. I pulled some salient info out of the report:

Amount of virgin tree pulp used annually: 3.1 million metric tonnes (3.4 million tons)

Percent of total fibre used in Kimberly-Clark products sold in North America that comes from recycled sources: 18

Percent of total fibre used in Kimberly-Clark consumer brands sold in North America that comes from recycled sources: Less than 1

You read right: less than 1% of all the Kleenex, Scott, and Cottonelle people buy from the store every day is made from recycled content. That’s inconscionable, especially considering that the company isn’t sourcing its virgin fiber responsibly, to boot. Obviously, if the company had a high standard for using recycled content in its products, they wouldn’t have to cut down so much old-growth Boreal forest. But even when it’s necessary for them to use virgin pulp, they could be sourcing it much more susatinably. As the report states:

If the company increased its use of recycled fibre across its entire range of products, it could dramatically reduce its reliance on virgin tree pulp. And if it adopted a more rigorous and credible policy, one that prohibited the use of fibre from Endangered Forests (including intact forests and threatened species habitat) and made a meaningful commitment to wood certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, Kimberly-Clark could ensure that virgin fibre it did use in its products came from well-managed forests.

Inexplicably, the company has resisted implementing these simple and seemingly commonsense standards. Plus, I haven't even mentioned the social justice issues this raises: the First Nations peoples who have lived in and off of the Kenogami Forest for generation after generation who weren't consulted whatsoever about KC's plans to destroy their homeland, for instance. Needless to say, KC can do better, and we aren’t letting them off the hook until they do.

In our latest effort to call attention to Kimberly-Clark’s unsustainable business practices, several Greenpeace activists locked down the Kleenex facility at Fullerton, CA yesterday (check out the slideshow). I was lucky enough to ride along.

It was quite a thrill to watch as the activists leapt from their vans and proceeded to lock down the main entrance of the facility by chaining themselves to toilets with fake trees in them. Around the corner, on a busy boulevard bordering the facility, another group of activists were unfurling a 40 foot banner that read “Stop flushing forests.”

Local Fullertonians (Fullertonites?) were receptive to the message, too. People honked wildly as they passed the banner and the activists in “Forest Crimes Unit” t-shirts – there were so many honks, in fact, that surely the big-wigs in the administrative office could hear them. Nearly all of the teamsters who passed by tooted their horns. Even one of the policemen on the scene gave our activists a thumbs-up.

It was just a quiet Thursday morning for most of the people commuting to work, but as they drove by and saw our activists their heads turned, their eyes lit up, curiosity got the better of them. And that was the point. The people who live and work there drive by the KC facility every day, but many are (or were) probably unaware of the degradation KC’s products have wrought on Canada’s ancient forests. Our ancient forests. But they know now.

Most people, when they learn of what goes into KC’s disposable paper products, are immediately ready to swear off of Kleenex, Scott, and Cottonelle altogether. We brought thousands of petitions and postcards from people pledging to do just that until KC starts using as much recycled content in their products as they can, and agrees to only source what virgin fiber it still needs from sustainably managed forests instead of vitally important ancient growth Boreal forests. Think they read them? Think they paid any mind to the honking outside their office?

We’ll see. In the meantime, we’ll keep the pressure on. And we won’t be buying any Kleenex.

While I can usually be found updating and writing on the Greenpeace USA Myspace profile, this week, I got the chance to get off the computer and into the streets for an amazing Greenpeace action...

In sweltering heat, three Greenpeace volunteers dragged chains, locks, and banners to the New Milford, CT Kleenex facility.  While arrests were likely, they were determined to deliver a message to Kimberly-Clark, makers of Kleenex tissues: "Kleenex must stop wiping away ancient forests.”

The massive plant accounts for 40% of the Kleenex and Scott products sold in the U.S., yet most products made at the New Milford facility contain little or no recycled fiber. Kimberly-Clark refuses to stop destroying ancient forests for its Kleenex, Scott, and Cottonelle lines, products that are used once and thrown away.

Volunteer, Andrea LeClair from Boston stepped up to the gate determined to let Kimberly-Clark know Greenpeace wasn’t backing off, “this is something bigger than me…and it’s affecting everyone.”

Up until a few months ago, Andrea had been tossing bags of garbage out her car window, but after attending the Greenpeace sponsored student conference, Powershift, she committed her life to protecting the planet. On Monday, she was more than ready to tell Kimberly-Clark to take care of their own mess.

 

 

Around 11:00 am, Monday, Andrea and two other volunteers locked themselves to the South Gate of the facility. A truck stood behind them and could not pass the activists. In the meantime, myself and another volunteer were just a little down the road placing tree saplings on the windshields of cars in the employee parking lot. A note attached to the saplings read: “We know Kimberly-Clark can do better.” Sweating like crazy, we walked away from the facility satisfied many of Kimberly-Clark’s employees would hear our message.

Back at the gate, the volunteers managed to get the gate half closed, using their bodies as a blockade for over an hour. Andrea told the bewildered security guards, “I’ve never done anything like this before, but we all know that Kimberly-Clark could do better and use recycled content in their tissues.”

Peace,

Lauren

 

 

As we all know, Kimberly-Clark (largest tissue maker in the world) still refuses to stop destroying ancient forests for Kleenex.  

In April I attended the company shareholder meeting and when called to speak I highlighted the fact that I have worked on this campaign for over three years.  Every year in front of shareholders, the Kimberly-Clark (K-C) CEO stands to speak about company accomplishments and yet when it comes to issues of sustainability, K-C takes the tiniest of baby steps.  The baby steps don’t cut it when you look at the impact of Kimberly-Clark.  Each year they remove 342,000 metric tons of fiber from the Boreal forest--most of which was removed by clearcutting the forest.

Today activists decided to show how concerned they are with K-C’s ancient forest destruction for Kleenex, Scott and Cottonelle brands that are used once and then flushed.  Three activists launched a blockade of the New Milford, CT Kimberly-Clark facility that produces 40% of the American supply of Kleenex and Scott products.  While locking down to the gate used by large transport trucks another group of activists descended on the parking lot to distribute messages to employees.  On each car the activists left a fact sheet on the Kleercut campaign and a tree sapling with an attached note that read: “We know Kimberly-Clark can do better. Here is a start.”

We do know that Kimberly-Clark, at its core a paper company, can do better and it is time they start by working with us to protect the North American Boreal forest.  

- Lindsey

If you are interested in learning more please visit our Kleenex Free Schools project and take a look at our latest report on Kimberly-Clark’s destruction of the Kenogami forest in Ontario, Canada.

Tissue giant Kimberly-Clark is spending $100 million on advertising to sell more Cottonelle toilet paper.  They’ve got some problems though.  First, Cottonelle has no recycled content and is made from ancient forests.  Second, their advertising campaign is ludicrously silly.  Someone decided a weird-looking dog-bus wearing a fake cable knit sweater should tour cities across North America to encourage people to “be kind to their behind” and buy Cottonelle toilet paper.  Seriously.

I’m not the only one who thinks the toilet-paper peddling dog-bus looks like the “Mutt Cutts” van from the Dumb and Dumber movie.  Can you tell which one is which?  Hint: the Mutt Cutts van looks less goofy!  Here it is: Mutt Cutts vs. “Mutt Butts.”

 

If you read this blog, you’ll know that Greenpeace greeted the toilet paper dog-bus on its first tour stop in New York City.  When it showed up in Philly, we were there again!

This time the mutant dog-bus was parked across from Independence Hall in Philadelphia.  Cottonelle-hawking marketers were inviting passersby to come aboard the bus to sit in a fake beach scene, (complete with sand and plastic drinks) and engage with spandex-clad trainers about rump exercises.  Remember, I’m not making this up!

Our activists changed their plans, unfurling a bright yellow “Forest Crime Scene” banner in front of the dog-bus.  The activists then began outreach to passersby, beating Kimberly-Clark at its own game.  Hundreds of people learned about Cottonelle’s connection to ancient forest destruction.  Ouch!

GET INVOLVED!
As the “Mutts Butts” bus tour continues, you can be part of the fun.  If you see the bus on the road, or think it is coming to your town, click here and let us know!

So far it’s Greenpeace 2, Mutt Butts bus: 0.  Stay tuned to the Treehuggers blog for more news!

-Rolf

Tissue giant and forest destroyer Kimberly-Clark launched a $100 million advertising blitz for its Cottonelle brand last week – and activists were there to greet them on the first day.

The set-up was as silly as it was expensive: Cottonelle paid for a eerie-looking mutant dog-bus filled with public relations hacks to tour New York City and tell people how to “be kind to your behind.”  Don’t ask me what dogs have to do with toilet paper.  Last time I checked…oh, nevermind.

Anyway, things didn’t go as planned.  Before long, people began asking the Cottonelle reps about their ties to ancient forest destruction.  Cottonelle’s day spiraled down the drain from there.  Click here to see photos of the day.

Activists unfurled a banner in front of the mutant dog-bus and told passersby how Kimberly-Clark products like Cottonelle and Kleenex drive the destruction of ancient forests.  People learned that Cottonelle contains no recycled content, but plenty of wood fiber from the Canadian Boreal forest – the last great ancient forest in North America.  They learned that the Boreal forest is crucial for efforts to fight global warming, critical habitat for caribou, songbirds and bears, and important to Canada’s native First Nations.  They also learned Kimberly-Clark could make Cottonelle from recycled fiber and sustainable wood, but favors spending cash on butt-themed advertising campaigns and greenwashing.

Suddenly, Cottonelle didn’t seem very “kind” to forests, the climate or people.  Folks on the street agreed to keep Cottonelle far from their behinds.  After all, there are plenty of other quality tissue products that are forest friendly (click here for a list).

New York City commuters have expressed disgust over Cottonelle’s toilet-themed ads that literally line the interior of subway cars with headlines like “Too Much Bran?” and “The Average Man Keeps His Underwear Until the Elastic Breaks.”  That’s not what I want to think about during rush hour.

Throwing Cottonelle’s adolescent attempts at bathroom humor back at them, activists donned boxer briefs with slogans such as “Be Kind to Forests” and “Leave Cottonelle Behind.”  Onlookers were amused -- even the famous Times Square “Naked Cowboy” got into the spirit, posing for photos holding a pair of shorts stating: "Leave Cottonelle Behind."

When the day was over, forest defenders left behind literature on Cottonelle tour vehicles (printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper of course) to educate their public relations staff.

Here’s more good news: the Cottonelle toilet paper dog-bus is scheduled to tour cities in the US and Canada for next few months, including Philly, Chicago, Toronto and San Francisco.  Here’s how you can help:

1. Keep your eyes out for Cottonelle ad blitzes and the mutant dog-bus!  Let us know if you spot the bus or think it is coming to your town.

2. If you see the bus, stop by and talk to Cottonelle reps (in a respectful manner, of course) about their role in ancient forest destruction.  Tell them you, your family and your friends won’t buy Cottonelle, Kleenex, or other Kimberly-Clark products until the company protects ancient forests.

3. Take action at our new Kleenex website.  Click here to send a message to Kimberly-Clark, upload photo messages, design your own spoof Kleenex box and more! 

The story of Greenpeace versus the forest destroying dog-bus has just begun.  Stay tuned!

-Rolf
 

If you’re a parent with school age children, a student, or a teacher, there’s a new way you can stand up for ancient forests: make your school Kleenex Free.

If you’ve participated in our Kleercut campaign before, you know tissue giant Kimberly-Clark, the maker of Kleenex, Cottonelle, Scott, Viva and other products, destroys ancient forests to make its disposable tissues.  Flushing away ancient forests doesn’t make sense – a grade school student could tell you that!

Of particular concern is the Canadian Boreal forest – the largest ancient forest left in North America.  Kimberly-Clark has a long history of gobbling up ancient forests in the Boreal to make its throw-away products.  In the process they’re chopping apart habitat for woodland caribou, wolverines, songbirds and many other animals.  They’re also cutting into the largest storehouse of carbon on land – something we can’t afford to do if we want to curb global warming.

People are also affected.  About 80% of Canada’s native First Nations are dependent on the Boreal forest for their livelihood and cultural survival.  Many parts of the Boreal are being logged without their input or consent.

So, Kimberly-Clark is earning a failing grade in a lot of basic subjects.  Thankfully, there are plenty of high quality forest friendly tissue products to choose from.  Check out our tissue buying guide to learn more.
 
The other good news is that there are new ways for students, parents and school faculty to teach Kimberly-Clark a lesson.

You can show Kimberly-Clark how you feel about forest destruction. We've unveiled a new online tool so you can send a photo message directly to the company.

Start your own Kleenex Free Schools project today by downloading our new toolkit – a resource guide with tips and info to help you make your school more forest friendly.

All of this and more is available on our new website.

Click here to spread the word to friends, family and colleagues.  If we work together, we can help Kimberly-Clark finally earn a passing grade!

-Rolf

I get a lot of calls from crazy people.  Well, to be fair they’re not all crazy.  In fact, most are sincere.  People simply desperate and asking for help.  Some want to save a single ancient tree on their main street, others are aware of a grand conspiracy (real & imagined), some are working on a movie script, college paper or novel.  If I can, I always try to take the time to listen and provide whatever guidance, assistance or perspective I can.  I do this largely for two reasons.  First, I can still recall what it was like to be new to Washington, DC and looking for my first job as an “environmentalist”.  Looking back I must have seemed crazy to a lot of people too, but I remember who took the time to help me think through the issues and clarifying my thinking.  I am grateful to them.  Second, you never know if someone is really rich and perhaps they’ll give Greenpeace a bunch of money if we don’t blow them off when they need help.  We don’t take money from corporations or governments, so every bit helps!

I remember when David Klass called me the first time: another guy writing a book.  In the madness of my typical day, I had completely forgotten that Karen Sack, our intrepid and brilliant Oceans campaigner, had told me to expect his call.  Karen had worked with David on his book “Firestorm”.  So I’m listening to David and thinking “so, you want me to tell you how to destroy the Amazon rainforest?”  …this guy better be rich.

Eventually I did put two and two together and David and I talked at length.  David was now working on “Whirlwind”, the second in his “The Caretaker” trilogy.  You see, in David’s series people have been sent back in time to either save or destroy the Earth.  There’s a war going on and what we do to the Earth today will have big implications on who wins.

Over the next few months he’d call out of the blue with a question or two.  It was kind of fun.  Although it had been a while, I have spent considerable time in the Amazon both in Brazil and Peru.  I’m also fortunate enough to have learned from the master, Paulo Adario, my Greenpeace counterpart in Brazil.  I’ve spent months on the rivers and I’ve flown over the region for hours and hours in a Cessna.  Especially from the air, the Amazon seems too big, too green, too lush and impossible for humanity to destroy.  Then you fly for hours and hours over fields with no forest in sight and you’re told that all that too was once intact rainforest.  Sadly, it can … and is, being destroyed.

One great misconception of the Amazon is that it’s empty of people.  Especially along the rivers-- the dominant mode of transportation, once you leave terra firma (dry land) in the eastern part and explore the vast western regions--you can’t go far without finding people living along the river’s edge.  There are 20 million people that call the Amazon their home.  This said, to be clear there are still enormously vast wilderness regions and numerous indigenous groups who have had no contact with the outside world.  This is one reason we can’t “save the Amazon” without taking into consideration the complex dynamic of social and economic issues … but I digress.   I’m supposed to be talking about David’s 2nd book, “Whirlwind”.

So anyway, I do know a thing or two about the Amazon and apparently just enough to make me dangerous in the mind of David Klass.  In our conversations, I soon found myself reverse engineering the Greenpeace forest campaign and every other positive environmental, social or economic initiative that I was aware of.  Apparently, I was typecast as the bad guy so I gave David my two-cents describing how to release the hounds of hell to destroy as much as possible of what I love. Like I said, it was fun ... in a weird, twisted kind of way.  I took comfort in the fact that, to the best of my knowledge, time travelers with quasi-omnipotent powers, don’t really exist … and besides Karen had told me that this guys Klass was a real author (thus, not sent back from the future to destroy the Amazon and shatter my career.) Still, it was a relief the other week when the book arrived in my office and I confirmed that David was not actually himself from the Dark Army of the future.  I really would have felt like a tool if he was.

So I’ve now read the book.  My kids (three and five) are still too young, … I think it’s a “t’ween” audience, but I personally thought it was great.  Perhaps I’m just a fan of the genre or maybe my wife is right when she tells me that I have the mind of an adolescent. Regardless, I concur with The New York Times Book review when it equated Whirlwind to Grand Theft Auto meets Al Gore.  It’s a fun read with an important environmental message.

How much I actually influenced David is, of course, up to debate ... although that bit in chapter 49 about the candiru fish is straight out of my nightmares and the subject still freaks me out to this day.  If the book sells as well as his first, I will of course tell my kids that it was all me.  If, on the other hand, David is actually an evil agent from the future I hereby disavow having ever talked to the man let alone had any influence.
 

- Scott 

What’s the likelihood that a multinational corporation netting over $18 billion a year would be scared of a couple of undergraduate students?

Well if you ask Kimberly-Clark, the world’s largest tissue manufacturer, I think you might find the answer to be very likely.

Students all over the country have been organizing to get their universities to cut contracts with Kimberly-Clark due to the company’s heinous support of clear-cutting practices and failure to use recycled fiber. So far, students at Rice University, American University, Harvard University, the University of Miami and Skidmore College worked with their administrations to take action against the company and discontinue use of its products. In the beginning of 2008 Wesleyan students Aurora Margarita-Goldkamp ’10 and Georgina Yeomans ’10 convinced their university to do the same.

At the end of last semester, Aurora and Georgina submitted a proposal to the school’s Sustainability Committee and campus store Weshop to stop its sale of products made by Kimberly Clark. Weshop found that it could make the change without losing money or increasing prices and as of 2008 has stopped stocking Kimberly Clark products. Instead they have increased their supply of alternative brands like Green Forest.

Aurora and Gina don't plan to stop there though: According to the Wesleyan Argus, their “next target is the Kimberly Clark products that are still used in dorms and public buildings all over campus.”

 - Robin

For the whole Wesleyan story, check out the article

See a full list of universities that are part of the Kleercut movement

Get involved with other students to rid your campus of corporate criminal Kimberly-Clark

Question: What would happen if the government suddenly erased protections for old-growth forests and clean water on public lands?

Answer: The public would freakout!

Unfortunately, this is not a hypothetical situation.  The Bush administration’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is working on a scheme to scrap protections for old-growth forests.  That’s right – Bush’s “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” on our public lands is back again!

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) just released plans to increase logging of old-growth trees by up to 900% in Oregon.  The proposed plan – called the Western Oregon Plan Revisions or “WOPR” -- would remove protections for old-growth forests and salmon-rich rivers across 2.6 million acres of public forests.  This includes old-growth forests where, in 2004, Greenpeace set up a Forest Rescue Station.

How did this scam of a plan get hatched?  The story behind the WOPR is almost as bad as the plan itself.

In 2003, the logging industry sued the Bush administration, complaining that there wasn’t enough old-growth logging on BLM lands in Oregon.  Instead of defending itself in court, the administration rolled over and settled out of court.  The sweetheart deal they came up with would wipe away protections for old-growth forests and buffers for streams.

Teddy Roosevelt, who helped establish America’s legacy of conservation and public lands, must be rolling in his grave.

The rest of us rolled up our sleeves!  Thousands of you took action and submitted comments on the WOPR.  Thanks!  Greenpeace staff in Portland, Oregon presented the BLM with your comments (printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper, of course).

The BLM staffer could hardly carry all of your letters.  They've got some reading to do!  With a stack that big, we hope the BLM got the message: the public wants old-growth forests protected!

The story is not over yet.  The BLM will respond to comments and publish a final plan later this year.

Stay tuned and stay involved.  Together we'll do what it takes to make sure ancient forests on public lands are not sacrificed to the saw!