Save the Redwoods/Boycott the Gap
Boycott-the-Gap Press Release: Fishers of Gap Inc. Denied Forest Certification!!
Posted by Mary Bull (chalicenew@earthlink.net)
Saturday, August 14, 1999
PRESS RELEASE** PRESS RELEASE **PRESS RELEASE
From: Greenwood Watershed Association, P.O. Box 90, Elk, CA 95432
Contact persons:
Mary Pjerrou - (707) 877-3405
email: pirohuck@mcn.org
Norman de Vall - (707) 877-3551
email: ndevall@mcn.org
Mary Bull -Save the Redwoods/Boycott the Gap Campaign
(415) 731-7924 chalicenew@earthlink.net
M.E.C. - (707) 468-1660
For more Info.: www.elksoft.com/gwa
To: All media Date: 8/5/99
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
GAP FAMILY LOGGING COMPANY FAILS TO OBTAIN "GREEN" LABEL
o Mendocino Redwood Company turned down by two private "green" label wood
products groups
o Certifier groups ask MRC to "minimize" use of their name in publicity
o How timber "certification" works. It's paid for by the applicant. No
documents available to the public. All applicants accepted.
o Watershed groups say clearcutting, herbicide use and logging old growth
should not be "certified" as "green" practices
"There can be no 'green' label on species extinction!" --Norman de Vall
"Disclosure of the Fishers' financial contributions to the wood
certification groups must be a condition of application..." -Mary Bull
"The Fishers' logging company has been using the Forest Stewardship Council
name as 'cover' for clearcutting, herbicide use and logging of the last old
growth..." -- Mary Pjerrou
For many months now, the Mendocino Redwood Company - a logging investment
of the Fisher family of the Gap clothing store empire - has been touting
its "pursuit" of "green" label certification by the Forest Stewardship
Council as evidence that its wood products have been sustainably logged and
are consumer-worthy. Yesterday, in an unusual public statement, the two
northern California members of the Forest Stewardship Council - Scientific
Certification Systems in Point Richmond, and the Institute for Sustainable
Forestry/Smartwood in Arcata and Willits - turned down the Fishers' logging
company application for "certification," and further stated that "...we
have asked MRC Mendocino Redwood Company to minimize public statements
pertaining to its long-term pursuit of FSC-endorsed certification."
Watershed groups in Mendocino County - where the Fishers have been logging
220,000 acres of cutover forest lands formerly owned by Louisiana Pacific -
had criticized MRC in "certification" meetings for using the Forest
Stewardship Council (FSC) name in press interviews and in promotional
letters to thousands of petition signers.
"The Fishers' logging company has been using its 'pursuit' of green label
certification as 'cover' for extensive clearcutting, herbicide use and
logging of the very last old growth, since February, before they even
applied for 'certification,'" said Mary Pjerrou of the Redwood Coast
Watersheds Alliance. "We provided the certifiers with the facts. This
company is not 'green.'"
Former Mendocino County Supervisor and co-chair of the Greenwood Watershed
Association Norman de Vall stated that he was not surprised by the
fraudulent public relations. "The public has been lied to for many years
about the state of these forests. Louisiana Pacific lied to us. The state
of California lied to us. Now the Fishers' logging company is lying to us.
The question is: When is the state going to begin enforcing the Forest
Practice Act?"
De Vall pointed out that the Forest Practice Act requires "maximum
sustained production of high quality timber products" and the protection of
other forest resources such as wildlife and fish. "Go look at their log
decks!" de Vall said. "Sixteen inch diameter trees is not high quality
timber. Then go look at Noyo harbor. The salmon fishing fleet is gone.
Here is the true price of this lousy wood - extinction of our fisheries,
loss of wildlife, our rivers full of mud. There can be no 'green' label on
species extinction!"
Pjerrou discussed the tables of Mendocino Redwood Company Timber Harvest
Plans (THPs) that the Redwood Coast Watersheds Alliance provided to the
certifying groups, showing that MRC is stockpiling logging plans at a rate
one third greater than the previous owner Louisiana Pacific, one of the
most notorious forest liquidators in northern California.
"This company is not only not logging sustainably, it is right now engaged
in taking every last stick of merchantable timber off of these lands -
including the very last of the old growth trees," Pjerrou stated.
Mary Bull, of the Save the Redwoods/Boycott the Gap Campaign, strongly
objected to the secret processes of the wood certification groups, given
Fisher family involvement with the Natural Resources Defense Council
(NRDC), which helped to develop the Forest Stewardship Council, the
umbrella groups for wood certifiers. "The NRDC quotes Bob Fisher of the
Gap in their brochure on the Forest Stewardship Council," Bull pointed out.
"Disclosure of the Fishers' financial contributions to these wood
certification groups should have been a condition of their logging
company's application for certification. Another condition should have
been their cessation of clearcutting and other devastating forest
practices."
Environmentalists fear that the Fishers' logging company will merely
re-apply for "certification," while continuing their liquidation logging
program. The wood certifying groups accept all applications, and keep all
certification evaluation documents proprietary, with no public access. The
Mendocino Redwood Company is operating without a state-approved "Sustained
Yield" Plan. Its predecessor, Louisiana Pacific, was required by the
California Board of Forestry to submit a "Sustained Yield" Plan in the
mid-1990s, after the "liquidation logging" crisis of the early 1990s, but
failed to get their SYP approved before selling out of the redwood business
to the Fisher family in 1998.
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