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