Save the Redwoods/Boycott the Gap
Boycott the Gap: Two Urgent Actions in the Wake of 9-11!
Posted by Mary Bull (chalicenew@earthlink.net)
Tuesday, October 9, 2001
Greetings, Forest Defenders and Social Justice Activists Around the Globe!
It's been over four months since we have contacted our entire listserve, national and international. Given the momentous world events--from the G-8 protests in Genoa to 9-11 and its aftermath--now war--we are sure you understand that the Boycott-the-Gap organizers responsible for the monthly newsletter have been extremely busy, as have many of you, helping to counter the current regressive backlash aimed at war, the curtailment of civil liberties, and an escalation in the very policies that precipitated the 9-11 tragedy.
Many of you have contacted us in the interim, asking for the status of the Gap Boycott. We have included a brief summary of the boycott, including the current demise of Gap, Inc, and the Forest Stewardship Council, the organization that "certified" the Fishers' devastating logging practices as "green," at the end of this email. Many thanks to activists in the UK, Canada, and throughout the US, who have kept the torch burning with creative Gap demos and outreach since the beginning of the year, successfully escalating the Gap Boycott! It's working!!! Over 150 NEW ACTIVISTS and activist groups worldwide have joined our network this year, committing to do Gap actions! Details will follow in the November newsletter.
The forces of greed and exploitation are shamelessly using the 9-11 tragedy and subsequent war to push through some extremely exploitative, self-serving legislation in the US. This alert addresses TWO CRITICAL WAYS that U.S. voters can stop imminent trade and energy policies that will escalate global injustice and the wanton destruction of our planet for the private profit of a few--in the guise of "necessity" and "patriotism," of course. YOU MUST ACT IMMEDIATELY. In this newsbrief and call to action:
-STOP FAST TRACK--CALL YOUR HOUSE REP NOW!
-NO OIL DRILLING IN THE ARCTIC REFUGE: CALL YOUR SENATORS NOW!
-Gap Boycott Update: 51% Drop in Profits! Japan on Board! +++
-Forest Stewardship Council: They're Hanging Themselves in Indonesia!
-Big River Victory: 7,400 Acres of Redwood Forest Saved!
STOP "FAST TRACK!"
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RIGHT NOW, If you are a US citizen, PLEASE pick up the phone and call the DC office of your HOUSE REP (you can call toll-free courtesy of the AFL-CIO by dialing 1-800-393-1082 and entering your zip code to connect to your rep's office (you can also find out who your house rep is and get his/her DC number from the phone book under US government listings or from http://www.house.gov/ ). Ask to speak to his/her TRADE STAFFER, tell her/him that you are against Fast Track--the signing over of Congressional trade authority to the Executive Branch, that your Rep should vote NO ON THE THOMAS BILL (H.R. 3005), and that you want a WRITTEN RESPONSE to your request. Fast Track is necessary for establishing the Free Trade Area of the Americas, a trade policy that will put all the remaining natural resources of the Western Hemisphere, as well as its people, governments, educational institutions, health, and public services at the complete mercy of corporate interests. Check out www.tradewatch.org and http://www.stopftaa.org for more info.
In the SF Bay Area, Global Exchange is hosting phone-banking Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings 6--9 PM this week. 2017 Mission, near 16th, San Francisco. Volunteer if you can! More info: 415-255-7296.
NO OIL DRILLING IN THE ARCTIC REFUGE!!!
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Contact your US Senators (check your phone book under U.S. Government listings to find out who your senators are and their DC numbers or get that info from www.senate.gov/, or use the SENATE SWITCHBOARD: 202-224-3121). Ask to speak to their ENERGY STAFFER, tell her/him that you want your Senator to vote NO on oil drilling in the Arctic Refuge. Tell them you want a written response to your request. Use the excellent talking points below from Dana Lyons (dana@cowswithguns.com), which include the human rights issue (the threat to the Gwich'in Indians and the caribou herds):
· America cannot drill its way to energy independence. The U.S. has at most 2-3% of the world's oil reserves while accounting for 25% of the world's oil consumption. It is simply not possible to produce our way to oil independence, even if we sacrifice all of our wilderness, parks, refuges, and coastlines. The only way to reduce dependence on foreign oil is through conservation and alternative energy supplies.
· The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that oil recovered from the Arctic Refuge would amount to less than a six month supply for American consumers. At no time would oil from the refuge be expected to amount to more than about 2 percent of US demand. We would still need to import over half of our oil from foreign countries.
· Under any circumstances, Arctic drilling cannot respond to our immediate or near term needs for national security. It would take seven to ten years to bring Arctic Refuge oil to market. There is no justification whatsoever for "rushing to judgment" on the Arctic Refuge in response to the terrorist attacks.
· Conservation, increasing fuel efficiency and alternative energy are much better national security measures than drilling in the Arctic Refuge. Terrorists cannot bomb the sun, or stop the wind. Alternative energy facilities can be smaller, dispersed and easily rebuildable.
· PROTECTING THE GWICH'IN INDIAN CULTURE & THE CARIBOU HERDS
In a nutshell, the proposed oil drilling will take place where the caribou give birth to their calves. If oil drilling takes place, the caribou will not come back to give birth there. The result will likely include a shift of the caribou herd's path and many early births, leading to high infant mortality.
The Gwich'in Indians who live across northern Alaska, The Yukon and Northwest Territories, get 75% of the protein in their diet from the caribou. Destruction of the great caribou herds will be devastating to the Gwich'in people and culture.
The Arctic Wildlife refuge is the only protected caribou calving ground. The rest of the Alaskan coastal plain is either being drilled or slated for drilling. If oil drilling is allowed in the Arctic Wildlife refuge, it is likely that the great caribou herds will go the way of the buffalo,
and the Gwich'in People will go the way of the assimilated Buffalo Indian cultures.
"The Buffalo are gone. But we can still save the caribou." --Gwich'in Elder
GAP BOYCOTT UPDATE!!!
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For the moment, suffice to say the following: Gap Inc has experienced a 51% drop in profits--and dropping--since January 2000; the Forest Stewardship Council, the despicable organization from whom the Gap Fishers bought a phony green label for their forest destruction, is likely to fall (see FSC newsbrief below); the Gap Boycott is growing, for example, with activists in Japan coming on board, activists at the College of William and Mary--the oldest college in the US--coming on board, along with over ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY new activists and activists groups worldwide pledging to organize protests on the International Day of Action Against the Gap, Saturday, December 1, and dozens of creative actions in the US, UK, and Canada over the past months!
Meanwhile, now that the FSC has given the Gap Fishers their lying seal of "sustainability," they have been filing logging plans faster and more furiously than ever before, violating environmental laws with impunity, and there's been no further progress on the sweatshop front, since Gap's token gesture of increasing their factory monitors from ~10 to ~80 (human rights organizations are calling for independent monitors)--and with Gap's massive lay-offs (over 10%), these window-dressing positions may no longer exist.
But changes are imminent. We are gearing up for the International Day of Action Against the Gap, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 1!!! And we are beginning a new tactic, which we call the PEER PRESSURE PUSH (details will follow in the November newsletter), which, along with the boycott, we hope will motivate the Fishers to finally do the right thing in forest and factory!
***We ARE going to win for redwoods and workers--check out www.gapsucks.org to help make it happen!!!***
THE FSC: HANGING ITSELF IN INDONESIA!!!
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This past weekend environmental groups met in London to assess whether the FSC can be reformed or whether it should be dumped entirely as a sell-out to the timber industry--the ultimate greenwash. This, in the wake of the FSC certification of liquidation logging companies in Indonesia--against the wishes of over 100 environmental and human rights groups. Despite this massive outcry, the FSC--in its arrogant and contemptuous fashion, which our organization and Sierra Club Canada, among others, has experienced first-hand--has been certifying companies operating in Indonesia that are notorious for their liquidation logging of some of the last virgin rainforest on the face of the earth, forest that is habitat to an endangered Asian tiger, among other endangered species, as well as indigenous peoples. Another meeting will be held in the US in December addressing the same issue, in which Save the Redwoods/Boycott the Gap and the Redwood Coast Watersheds Alliance will participate.
As many of you know, the integrity of the FSC has been in question for several years--in the wake of that organization's certification of liquidation logging companies, such as the Gap Fishers' Mendocino Redwood Company of California and JD Irving of Canada, a scandalous certification in Gabon challenged by Rainforest Action Network, the FSC's reduction of standards in response to timber industry pressure, such as reducing the content of "certified" wood in particle board bearing the FSC label from 70% to 30% in February 1999), among many other travesties and criticisms.
Our organization, Save the Redwoods/Boycott the Gap (SRBG), along with other Mendocino, California, watershed protection groups, were early whistle blowers exposing the FSC. But their Indonesia certifications appear to be the point of no return for the larger enviro groups, who are now seriously questioning the viability of the entire organization.
SRBG has taken the position that an organization that meets in secret, that does not share its information about the logging companies it certifies with the public nor include the public in the certification decision-making process, an organization that privatizes a process that should be public, that essentially decides the fate of public trust resources in back-room deals, playing the Big Boy Game--thus disempowering the public at large, as well as local communities that are directly affected by such certifications, an organization whose member certifying companies earn their livelihood from the timber companies they certify, making them very partial in the process, CANNOT BE REFORMED.
To us, the new "controversy" of SFI (the Sustainable Forestry Initiative--an invention solely of the timber industry) versus FSC amounts to Wolf versus Wolf-in-sheep's-clothing. They both should be exposed and dumped. People have to bite the bullet when it comes to forest products: dramatically reduce our consumption of them; use alternative building materials, such as recycled plastic building products (check out US Plastic Lumber); recycle and re-use the wood from building demolition; only use wood from tree plantations created from reclaimed wasteland or long-time agricultural land (not from natural forests/watersheds converted to plantations) or from truly sustainable logging ops (there are precious few of these at this point in the history of deforestation; evidently there's one in British Columbia run by native peoples--they currently use the FSC aegis, which they will have to lose if they want to maintain their credibility--the regional aegis along with contact info will be provided in the November newsletter).
NEWS FLASH: BIG RIVER VICTORY!!!
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Congrats to Steve Antler and other Mendocino grassroots activists whose campaign to save Big River, begun over a year ago, has been parleyed into a substantial victory: Hawthorn Timber has agreed to sell 7,400 acres of its redwood holdings in the lower watershed to the public, to be established as a state park. Most of the $26 million price-tag came from state agencies, via the parks bond embraced by California voters at the last election. The Mendocino Land Trust still has to raise a little over $2 million in matching funds by the end of the year. Your contribution to the Big River Fund is tax-deductible and can be sent to: Mendocino Land Trust, P O Box 1094, Mendocino CA 95460. You should include a note in the memo section of your check that the contribution is for the “Big River Fund.” Contact 707-962-0470 for more info.***
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In the coming months we will be seeing democracy and civil liberties compromised in the name of the "war on terrorism"--already the US Congress handed over its war authority to the Executive Branch, and Senator Dianne Feinstein has proposed legislation to prohibit foreign students from entering the country for six months. The hidden agenda is, as ever, to strengthen the position of the powerful--exploitative corporate interests--and to silence their opponents--the proponents of global justice and a sustainable planet. We must expose and challenge this at every turn.***
Mary Bull, Coordinator
Save the Redwoods/Boycott the Gap Campaign
252 Frederick Street, San Francisco, CA 94117 . 415-731-7924
chalicenew@earthlink.net http://www.gapsucks.org
Mary Pjerrou, President
Redwood Coast Watersheds Alliance
707-877-3405 pirohuck@mcn.org www.elksoft.com/gwa
Other Contacts/Information Sources:
Mark Hilovsky, Greenbuilder
415-550-6850 mhilo@aol.com
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Bay Area Coalition for Headwaters
510-835-6303 Listserve listproc@envirolink.org
(message text = Subscribe BACHlist,
followed by email address, then name)
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Info on Gap Sweatshops:
http://www.globalexchange.org
leila@globalexchange.org
FOR REDWOODS & WORKERS:
BOYCOTT GAP, BANANA REPUBLIC, & OLD NAVY!!!
FOR PEOPLE & PLANET: STOP THE FTAA!!! http://www.stopftaa.org
For questions and comments please e-mail us!
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