PRESS RELEASE
Shareholders Prepare to ‘Wake Up Weyerhaeuser’ at April Meeting
For Immediate Release: March 21, 2006
San Francisco- Today 100 top investors in Weyerhaeuser (NYSE: WY), the world’s largest lumber company, began receiving letters from Rainforest Action Network endorsing shareholder resolutions to improve the company’s social and environmental performance.
Calvert Group, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Grassy Narrows First Nation, The Boreal Forest Network, Rainforest Action Network, green-building industry leaders and other stakeholders are calling on the lumber giant to join a growing movement of multinational corporations bringing policies and practices into alignment with best practices on governance, the environment, and human rights.
Despite a recent green rush towards sustainability in the wood and paper sector, Weyerhaeuser still operates under an out-dated forestry practices policy originally developed by the company in 1971. Shareholders are challenging the company to adopt independent Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification, respect the rights of indigenous communities, and adopt a comprehensive environmental policy to protect endangered forests.
Triggered by Weyerhaeuser’s 11th hour decision to silence shareholders at its 2005 annual general meeting, the unlikely alliance of shareholder activists are reaching out to fellow investors to ensure that concerns about the company’s well-documented destructive forestry practices, human rights abuses, and $211 million fourth quarter loss are heard loud and clear at this year’s meeting in Federal Way on April 20.
Resolutions
The March 16, 2006 letter encourages investors to vote yes on resolutions filed by Calvert Group and The International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Calvert’s resolution requests that Weyerhaeuser assess the feasibility of earning FSC certification for its forestlands and forest products manufacturing facilities by November 1, 2006. FSC standards provide independent, third party certification to ensure strong protection of forest ecosystems, workers’ rights, and the rights of indigenous peoples to free, prior and informed consent for industrial activities on their traditional territory.
Inconsistent with current corporate governance best practices, Steve Rogel serves as both CEO and Chairman of the Board. The Teamsters’ filed a resolution requiring “an independent leader to ensure that management acts strictly in the best interests of the Company, especially when the Company is facing significant challenges.” Citing a 2005 $457.8 million dollar judgment against the company for contract violations and recent plant closures which have left at least 700 Canadian Weyerhaeuser employees jobless, the Teamsters’ resolution asks for an independent Board of Directors that represents the best interests of shareholders.
The Nominees
Ms. Bonnie Swain is a mother and member of the Canadian Grassy Narrows First Nation community. The Grassy Narrows community, like many other indigenous communities across Canada including the Haida Gwaii and Hupacasath First Nations, assert that Weyerhaeuser has logged on their land without permission and have initiated lawsuits, public protests, and logging blockades to stop Weyerhaeuser from destroying the forests on their traditional territories. If elected, Bonnie Swain will help Weyerhaeuser adopt 21st century values and respect Native rights.
Mr. Michael Brune is the Executive Director of Rainforest Action Network and has helped dozens of companies develop business policies and practices that improve supply chain management and the integration of environmental values with sound business strategies. Mr. Brune has worked closely with many leading companies as they develop and implement modern environmental policies, including Home Depot, Lowe's, Kinko’s, many top homebuilders, such as KB Homes, and some of the world’s largest financial institutions, including Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase.
Ms. Lynne Barker is a green-building specialist who develops policies and programs to advocate for higher standards in the commercial, institutional, and residential markets. The green building industry was named the number one emerging building trend in the Wall Street Journal in 2005 and there are currently over 2,000 LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) projects completed or under development in the US representing 192 million square feet and $57.1 billion worth of capital investment. If elected to serve on the board of directors, she will guide Weyerhaeuser on how to get in on the green rush.
Weyerhaeuser and Human Rights
Grassy Narrows First Nation representatives recently sent a letter warning the chief executives of Weyerhaeuser to “immediately cease and desist from all logging and industrial resource extraction on our territory” or face a “fierce international campaign.” The letter followed a decade of failed negotiations, lawsuits, environmental assessment requests, public protests, and a 3-year logging blockade- the longest running in Canadian history.
When representatives from Haida Gwaii First Nation spoke outside Weyerhaeuser’s AGM last year, their community was preparing for a third week of community checkpoints blocking Weyerhaeuser logging and asserting native land rights on their island in British Columbia. The checkpoints shut down all logging on the island for a month and the community seized $50 million worth of logs. Island residents say that failed negotiations, un-enforced laws and decades of destructive forestry had left them with no option but to block further industrial logging by Weyerhaeuser. The blockades enjoyed broad international support and resulted in an agreement with the Canadian government granting the people of Haida Gwaii more control over their traditional territory.
Weyerhaeuser and the Environment
Weyerhaeuser’s unsustainable operations in the Canadian Boreal Forest, which stretches across North America from Alaska to the Atlantic Ocean, have been widely publicized in the last year. Weyerhaeuser annually harvests more than 10.2 million cubic meters of timber from the Boreal entirely from areas that have not been FSC certified. The Boreal comprises 25 percent of the planet's remaining ancient forest and is considered as important to global environmental security as the Amazon. Some of the Boreal's key environmental services include regulating global climate, cleaning the air, purifying water, and serving as a lifebank in a time of unprecedented extinction. Less than eight percent of the Boreal is protected, and approximately half has been designated for resource extraction by the Canadian government.
Supporting Statements
“Weyerhaeuser is losing touch with the marketplace,” says Brant Olson, director of Rainforest Action Network’s Old Growth Campaign. “No one wants to build a home with lumber stolen from First Nation communities. No one wants to invest in a company that ignores its shareholders. We’re working with customers, banks and communities worldwide to make sure that Weyerhaeuser changes its business practices to respect the environment, communities and indigenous rights."
“Weyerhaeuser has long ignored the people most affected by their decisions- both on the ground and in the board room,” says Bonnie Swain, Grassy Narrows community leader and Weyerhaeuser Board nominee. “I welcome the chance to be heard as a Native person and a person who doesn’t profit off the land, but survives off of it. If a Native person went and started cutting trees they wouldn’t cut it all because there would be no animals, nothing to look at, nothing there. It is past time for Weyerhaeuser to start respecting Native wisdom and Native rights.”
"FSC is leading the charge to restore trust in good forestry,” says Dr. Michael P Washburn, Vice President of Brand Management at Forest Stewardship Council US. “For companies who truly believe they are doing the right thing on the ground, FSC is a no-brainer. For those not moving ahead, it’s fair to ask what are they trying to hide?"
"Weyerhaeuser has many stated policy commitments both to protect the boreal forest environment and to respect and honour Indigenous Peoples rights,” says Don Sullivan, Executive Director of the Boreal Forest Network. “I say it is high time that Weyerhaeuser walk the walk instead of talk the talk and live up to what they have committed themselves to on paper for endangered boreal forests."
The clear-cutting of the land, and the destruction of the forest is an attack on our people,” says Roberta Keesick, Grassy Narrows’ blockader, grandmother, and trapper. “The land is the basis of who we are. Our culture is a land-based culture, and the destruction of the land is the destruction of our culture. And we know that is in the plans. Weyerhaeuser doesn't want us on the land, they want us out of the way so they can take the resources. We can't allow them to carry on with this cultural genocide."
For more information visit RAN.org/Weyerhaeuser or FreeGrassy.org.
Contact: Brianna Cayo Cotter, (415) 305-1943, media@RAN.org
