PRESS RELEASE
Indigenous Activists to Weyerhaeuser: We’ll Leave Your Home When You Leave Ours
For Immediate Release:
March 14, 2007
Activists occupy Quadrant model home to demand an end to the destruction of Grassy Narrows Indigenous homeland by Weyerhaeuser
SEATTLE – Activists occupied the roof of a model home at Quadrant Homes’ Bothell Development today, unfurling a large banner that reads “Weyerhaeuser: We’ll Leave Your Home When You Leave Ours.” The activists, who include members of the Grassy Narrows First Nation and Rainforest Action Network, are protesting the ongoing destruction of Grassy Narrows Indigenous territory in Canada. They plan to occupy the house until Weyerhaeuser CEO Steve Rogel agrees to cancel contracts for all wood supplies originating in Grassy Narrows.
Quadrant Homes, a wholly owned subsidiary of Weyerhaeuser Co., builds its Washington homes using Weyerhaeuser building materials traced to clear-cut logging operations on Grassy Narrows land in Northwest Ontario.
Grassy Narrows First Nation, a Northwest Ontario Indigenous community that depends on the land for hunting, fishing and other cultural activities, opposes Weyerhaeuser’s use of wood supplied from clear-cut logging on their land. Weyerhaeuser is the top consumer of wood from Grassy Narrows territory, which comprises more than half of the company’s total volume. For years, the community has suffered the ill effects of clear-cut logging on its territory and has tried to stop it. They have been ignored by the Canadian government and by companies like Weyerhaeuser and Quadrant Homes that continue to profit from the wholesale destruction of the Grassy Narrows land and people.
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.
“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.
“Weyerhaeuser, the largest lumber company in the world, 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.
