PRESS RELEASE
Weyerhaeuser to Shareholders: Shut Up and Get in the Squad Car
For Immediate Release: April 19, 2007
SEATTLE – This morning, several Weyerhaeuser proxy shareholders were denied access and forcibly removed from the lumber giant’s annual general meeting (AGM), and one was arrested. Many of the silenced shareholders were at today’s AGM to exercise their rights as investors to express their concerns about the company’s out-of-date environmental and human rights practices. Spokespeople from Rainforest Action Network (RAN), the Indigenous Network on Economies and Trade, the Taiga Rescue Network, and Jobs with Justice were among those who were refused entrance to the meeting and threatened with arrest.
Weyerhaeuser’s decision to stifle its shareholders is consistent with the company’s unilateral corporate culture. In April 2005, Weyerhaeuser raised the ire of the investor community when it refused to let shareholders ask questions at its AGM. The annual general meeting is the only public opportunity for owners of the company to address management.
“Weyerhaeuser already has a well-deserved reputation as a bad neighbor, and today, its management further demonstrated why the company is a bad investment,” said Brant Olson, RAN’s Old Growth Campaign Director. “Weyerhaeuser continues to log in endangered forests across Canada and in other regions, and it routinely dismisses the legitimate concerns of First Nations, communities, and shareholders. Mr. Rogel and his team are covering their eyes, plugging their ears, and proceeding with business as usual, in spite of vocal opposition from the investment, environmental, labor and human rights communities.”
Socially responsible investors, Rainforest Action Network, and a number of NGOs are backing a resolution filed by Capital Strategies Consulting, Inc., requesting “a feasibility assessment to suspend wood procurement from Grassy Narrows’ territory until the free, prior and informed consent of the community has been established.” The resolution contends that Weyerhaeuser’s ongoing purchasing of wood clear-cut from Grassy Narrows violates internationally recognized human rights and established industry best practices.
“The human and Indigenous rights of Indigenous peoples must be respected by Weyerhaeuser. The deforestation of Grassy Narrows First Nation and the milling of those logs without the community’s free, prior informed consent is an abuse of those fundamental rights,” said Arthur Manuel of the Indigenous Network on Economies and Trade.
Today’s meeting follows a week of events that have raised the profile of Weyerhaeuser’s inaction on the growing controversy in Grassy Narrows. Yesterday, RAN activists scaled Quadrant Homes’ headquarters in Bellevue, Wash., and unfurled a gigantic banner reading: “Weyerhaeuser: Human Rights Abuser.” Quadrant homes, Washington’s biggest homebuilder, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Weyerhaeuser.
The people of Grassy Narrows depend on the land for hunting, fishing and other cultural activities, all of which have suffered due to rampant clear-cut logging on their land. Weyerhaeuser’s Kenora iLevel Timberstrand mill is the top consumer of wood from Grassy Narrows territory. The wood is used to produce homebuilding materials used throughout the U.S. by Weyerhaeuser’s homebuilding subsidiaries, including Quadrant Homes, Pardee Homes, Marquee Homebuilders and Winchester Homes. Years of opposition to the logging have been ignored by the Canadian government and Weyerhaeuser.
