Hi!

I wanted to share some stories from our official opening of our new office in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). This post is quite long but it has been the best few days and I have to share with you all.

The Arctic Sunrise appeared just before 15:30 on Saturday afternoon moving along slowly up the Congo River toward Matadi, the DRC's principal port for timber exports. The ship was quite the site to behold! As it approached, the far side of the Congo river was moving rapidly upstream, but was moving rapidly downstream here next to the port. In the middle of the two currents there was an eddy unlike anything I have ever seen.  It was an amazing site to see the pirouettes the Arctic Sunrise did as it danced in between the powerful currents.

As the ship pulled into port, 10 local drummers played traditional music and several dancers performed to celebrate its arrival. We were at the sleepy end of the port where there is normally little activity other than a few containers moving in and out, but on Saturday afternoon it came alive with port officials, the governor of the province, and many other dignitaries who had come to welcome the ship. People waited in the baking heat of the Congo sun for over two hours for the Arctic Sunrise and its crew to clear customs. And finally, with all the formalities done, the dignitaries were able to welcome the captain and the crew and tell us all how excited they were for the ship and Greenpeace to be in their town.

The rest of the team arrived on Sunday. That includes Gregoire & Jerome (GP France), An (GP Belgium), Brad, Mary, Amadou, Anne, Prudence, Danny, Raoul and Rene (GP Africa), Lalita, Dietlind, Philippe, Maarten, Chris and myself from GP International, and civil society partners from all over the country.

Throughout the day we had many people from the port and the town dropping by to say hi to the crew and take a tour of the ship. We were the big event in town and everyone wanted to join in the excitement. The sheer excitement at the arrival of the Arctic Sunrise was amazing. The ship’s crew was warm and welcoming, offering tea, coffee, and dinner to the guards, customs staff, and random visitors that popped by. Everyone seemed quite taken by the kindness and generosity we brought to town.

The day of the launch, preparations began at 8am with briefings and getting the final logistics into place. We had a beautiful event planned, and amazingly enough by 11:00am we were running ahead of schedule!!!! We had the Congolese National Environment Minister, the mayor of Matadi, the governor and his advisors, provincial ministers, parliamentarians, and others representing environment and forests at the local and national level. As the dignitaries arrived the drummers took up their beat once again, and they were joined not only by the dancers but by a police band of at least 20 people who eagerly joined in the musical celebration.

The captain welcomed the VIPs on board for a special tour of the ship. We then ushered various groups of journalists and civil society partners through tours and brought everyone into the air conditioned hold where the ceremony took place. There were over 100 guests on board and the captain and crew did a fantastic job of ensuring that all our plans went according to schedule – even better still, ahead of schedule!

We opened with a speech by the provincial governor, then Lalita and Amadou spoke, and finally the National Environment Minister addressed us and welcomed Greenpeace but also challenged us to be real partners and turn our words into actions. He acknowledged that the road ahead may not be easy but he welcomed us warmly and officially declared the office open in Kinshasa (DRC's capital city and the location of our new office). Afterward we whisked our guests off to a hotel where everyone enjoyed a beautiful luncheon and we managed to have a good discussion with the high-level officials about Forests for Climate and what the climate talks in Poznan, Poland, which are happening this December, mean to the Congo Basin.

This day was truly an amazing day. As I sit here and type, it is so hard to find the words to fully explain what the atmosphere was like. The DRC is in the midst of a humanitarian crisis, and has been ravaged by years of conflict, part of which is driven by its natural resource wealth. This day we signaled our commitment to work here and address the environmental and social issues facing the 40 million people whose very lives are dependent on the forests and their amazing biodiversity. We saw hope and excitement that an organization with Greenpeace’s global reach and tools like the Arctic Sunrise was making such a strong commitment to work in partnership with these people who have suffered so much.

Opening an office in the Congo has been a long time in the making. We managed to do it in style. As the captain said, if we can run an event like this in the Congo, and ahead of schedule no less, we can do anything!

But now the hard work begins. This office needs all of our support and commitment as they are about to embark on the challenge of finding their way into the Greenpeace world, hurdling the planning meetings, learning how to leverage the national and international aspect of our campaign strategy, and finding the vision for the Congo that comes from the people of the Congo with the complete support of this organization.

Some of us returned to Kinshasa to ready ourselves for the trip to Poznan, where we will carry these stories forward in our fight to save the forests for the climate. Some of the team set sail today down the Congo River at 18 knots, and are now beginning preparations to do a solar generation workshop, led by Christian of GP China and the Kids for Forests team from Cameroun and Kinshasa. After the workshops they will do a solar installation and show movies on the solar cinema. We are not only showing our work defending forests and the people and ecosystems that depend on them, but also bringing in real solutions to the many needs and challenges of the Congo.

I want to say a final thanks to all of those that were there, the ship and its fantastic crew, the GP Africa staff and all the NROs and our civil society partners. It is most definitely a day I will not ever forget. Viva la Afrique!

Lots of love and warmth from our newest office in Africa!

Michelle Medeiros
Africa Campaign Coordinator
Greenpeace International

Ashley Perry is a 12-year-old at Friedman Middle School in Taunton, Massachusetts, who has taken to activism and campaigning at an early age. 

As we all know, Kimberly-Clark destroys ancient forests to make tissue-products like Kleenex and Scott tissues.  Ashley is running her own Kleercut campaign!

First, she implemented a Perry-family boycott of Kimberly-Clark products.  Ashley had read about Greenpeace’s Kleercut campaign on our website, took action, and she was able to persuade her family to follow her lead.  

Ashley has taken her campaign on the road as well; she refuses to use Kleenex at her friends’ houses!  She has distributed fliers that talk about switching to a more environmentally friendly tissue brand in her neighbors’ mailboxes and handed them out to spectators at the local baseball field about.

At her school, Ashley is a member of the Blue Crew, a group of students who go around twice a week to the classrooms to pick up paper for recycling.  In addition to her Kleenex-boycott work, Ashley has, along with her mom’s help, started a recycling program—the Ashley Perry Project—at the local baseball field.  Every week Ashley and her mom go retrieve the recyclables and bring them home to put in their own bins.  Recently Ashley wrote a letter to her school asking them to place recycling bins in the cafeteria for paper and plastic products.  Ashley says the response from her classmates and community members has been positive.  “They have been pretty good about recycling and putting it in the right bins,” she says.

Thanks to Ashley for taking the initiative, doing the research and making positive change!  It will take all of us to protect the ancient forests!

Keep up the great work, Ashley!

Andrea

Tissue giant (and forest destroyer) Kimberly-Clark is trying to convince Spanish speakers in the US to buy its products – Huggies and Pull-ups in particular.  To do so, they’re touring southern California, handing out sample diapers.  If you’re a regular Treehugger blog reader, you know that they’ve had some weird marketing tours in the last year, including an ugly dog-bus and a fake café.  This time, it is a diaper-train tent.  I’m serious.

On Saturday, Kimberly-Clark advertisers set up in shopping center parking lots in the San Diego area.  Everything was going according to plan…until Greenpeace activists showed up again.

The diaper-dealers didn’t realize that Saturday was the start of the Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), a holiday of Mexican heritage that celebrates those who have passed with a variety of activities – including the building of commemorative altars.

Our team sprang into action, setting up a Day of the Dead altar to honor the animals and ancient forests that have been destroyed for Kimberly-Clark’s throw-away products.  The display was complete with Boreal animals, posters of clearcut ancient forests, and placards that explained in Spanish and English: Dedicado a la memoria de los bosques eliminados por KC (In Memory of Forests Destroyed by Kimberly-Clark).

The team also passed out bilingual fliers to hundreds of shoppers, educating them about Kimberly-Clark’s role in ancient forest destruction.  The response was enthusiastic.  It seems ancient forest destruction stinks no matter how you say it.

The diaper-dealers tried to scare away our activists by threatening to “call Kimberly-Clark” and “take pictures” of them.  The activists were delighted by this news, since they’d been working hard to get people to call Kimberly-Clark and had been taking pictures of themselves all afternoon!

Stay tuned as our creative activists turn up the heat on K-C.  In the meantime, visit our take action center to use your own creativity to make a statement for ancient forests.

-Rolf

Ethical Corporation’s “Greenwasher,” is a monthly column dedicated to pointing out inaccuracies in the seemingly environmental practices / actions of companies and corporations, has chosen to highlight tissue-giant Kimberly-Clark, makers of products such as Kleenex, Scott, Huggies, Kotex, and Depends, for the second time this year.

According to their website, Kimberly-Clark (K-C) “emphasizes sustainability and sound environmental practices as cornerstones of doing business…”  The irony lies in that K-C’s recycled tissue boxes hold tissues that are not recycled.  How could they let this happen?  How can the box that holds their tissue be the only part of the product that is recycled?

To further add to the greenwasher theme, K-C has released a sustainability report that states the wood fiber K-C receives from the Boreal Forest in Ontario, Canada, is “sawdust and chips – or leftovers.”  

There are two reasons that the above statement is ironic and a false environmental-advertisement.  First, the Kenogami Forest in northern Ontario has been completely destroyed and habitat has been lost due to K-C’s more than 70-year occupation.  Really, there is nothing “leftover” for K-C to log in the Kenogami.

In addition, a woodpile—enough to fill 7000 truckloads—was recently found in northern Ontario in the Ogoki forest, northwest of the Kenogami Forest.  These logs—rotting in the forest—were earmarked for a mill whose largest customer is Kimberly-Clark.  This is a direct consequence of poor forest management.  Is this the “leftovers” K-C describes in their sustainability report?

Tell Kimberly-Clark to stop talking about “sustainability practices” and actually put them into action.
 

Until the ancient forests are protected,

Andrea

If you watch TV, open a magazine or browse the web these days, you’ve probably seen the phenomenon called “greenwash.”  Simply put, greenwash is the act of pretending to be green when you’re not.

An expert greenwasher is Kleenex maker Kimberly-Clark.  Responding to pressure from our Kleercut campaign, Kimberly-Clark has made many claims about its environmental performance in recent years.  Unfortunately, Kimberly-Clark’s claims have not been matched by commitments and results in the real world.

For example, Kimberly-Clark often claims that the wood fiber they get from Canada’s Boreal Forest are made from “sawdust and chips – or leftovers – of the lumber production process.”

That’s not what see in the Canada’s Boreal Forest.  We recently documented a huge pile of wood ripped from the ancient forests in northern Ontario destined to be turned into Kleenex and other disposable products.  As you can tell from the photo below, a lot of whole trees -- not "sawdust and chips" -- have been sawed down to feed Kimberly-Clark.  Check out the video and full story here.

 

Kimberly-Clark also claims they are green because they are listed on the Dow Jones World Sustainability Index (DJWSI).  Sounds nice, right?  The problem is, the DJWSI a tool for measuring a broad range of company characteristics – from “talent attraction and retention” to philanthropy – but it doesn’t have much to do with environmental standards.  In fact, only 7% of the overall DJWSI rating has anything to do with the environment, and most of that is focused on energy efficiency.  The index does not address the hot-button topics like endangered species or ancient forests.  These are core issues that have inspired the campaign against Kimberly-Clark.  Oops.

Here’s another one: Kimberly-Clark also claims it is green because it is a member of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.  The Council can be a decent forum to exchange ideas and promote sustainability initiatives.  But, there are no real environmental standards required for membership.  Basically, any company can join.

In fact, many corporations that are neck-deep in environmental controversies, such as Chevron, General Motors, Royal Dutch Shell, DuPont, Dow Chemical, ConocoPhillips, Weyerhaeuser, and the China Petrochemical Corporation are members of the Council.  I’m not trashing the Council, but we can’t let companies like Kimberly-Clark claim their membership in the Council is proof of environmental achievement.  That’s like saying you’re in tip-top shape just because you belong to a gym. 

The list of greenwashers and greenwashing is long and growing.  Greenpeace has a new website dedicated to greenwashing where you can rate and report greenwashing.  Check it out here.  Together, we can make sure corporations match green words with green deeds!

- Rolf

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.

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.

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!