PRESS RELEASE
Activists Arrested for Occupying Bothell Quadrant Model Home Today
For Immediate Release:
March 14, 2007
Indigenous activists from Canada demand an end to Weyerhaeuser’s ongoing destruction of Grassy Narrows Indigenous homeland
* Great hi-res, rights free photos available at www.flickr.com/photos/rainforestactionnetwork*
SEATTLE – On Wednesday evening two activists from Rainforest Action Network were arrested after occupying the roof of a model home at a Quadrant Homes housing development in Bothell for several hours. After chaining themselves to the roof, the activists unfurled a large banner that read “Weyerhaeuser: We’ll Leave Your Home When You Leave Ours.”
Quadrant Homes, Washington’s biggest homebuilder, is owned by Weyerhaeuser, the world’s largest lumber company. Recent investigations by Rainforest Action Network show that Quadrant builds its Washington homes using Weyerhaeuser building materials traced to clear-cut logging operations on Grassy Narrows land in Northwest Ontario.
The rooftop protest came after a Monday meeting between members of the Grassy Narrows First Nation and top Weyerhaeuser executives failed to resolve basic differences of opinion over logging operations within the community’s ancestral territory. Despite nearly four years of negotiations, lawsuits, protests and blockades by the community, CEO Steve Rogel continues to refuse alternatives that would eliminate the need for clear-cut logging.
“Enough is enough. The true cost of Weyerhaeuser’s clear-cuts is illness, the death of animals, and the ruin of our spiritual practices and culture. Because of the clear-cuts, we can no longer hunt, fish, trap, or gather medicine or berries like we used to,” said Maria Swain, a Grassy Narrows grandmother who has traveled over 3,000 miles to demand an end of the destruction from Weyerhaeuser.
Canadian logging company Abitibi Consolidated currently holds logging rights to Grassy Narrows territory granted to them by the Ontario government. Grassy Narrows contests these licenses as a violation of their Indigenous rights under Treaty 3. Weyerhaeuser is the sole purchaser of hardwood from Grassy Narrows territory each year- making it the largest purchaser of wood from the contested area. Weyerhaeuser purchases the wood for its Kenora Timberstrand mill, which makes building products sold throughout the United States and used in Quadrant Homes.
“Weyerhaeuser has the ability and the responsibility to stop the destruction of Grassy Narrows,” said Brant Olson, Old Growth Campaign Director for Rainforest Action Network. “Weyerhaeuser’s response to the Grassy Narrows catastrophe has been severely lacking. They say there’s nothing they can do, that it is in the hands of the Canadian province or Abitibi, the logger. But the fact is, as long as they continue to buy the majority of the wood from Grassy Narrows territory, they are driving the destruction of the land and of the community.”
“Building American suburbs from Canadian clear-cuts is unethical,” said David Sone, Old Growth campaigner at Rainforest Action Network. “Weyerhaeuser clings to outdated business practices that ignore the cultural and environmental value of the Boreal Forest. As CEO, Steve Rogel should promote stronger social responsibility at Weyerhaeuser, beginning with an exit strategy from Grassy Narrows.”
For more information, visit FreeGrassy.org for up-to-the-minute photos, video and updates.
