http://www.kleercut.net/nov3events

Kleenex sells 180 billion sheets of tissue paper each year and NOT ONE of them has any recycled content. They can make a tissue that stops the spread of the flu but they can't make them out of something besides 10,000 year old forests? Kleenex even goes as far as to boast on their website that their tissues are made from 100% virgin fiber. Kleenex and parent corporation Kimberly-Clark are felling ancient forests to flush them down the toilet. Phooey!

More than 90,000 folks have sent messages to tell Kimberly-Clark and Kleenex to change their ways. We know that Kimberly Clark is wiping out ancient forests for disposable tissues, but we need your help to spread the word and STOP the destruction.

Join Greenpeace and other groups for an International Day of Action on November 3rd. Visit the day of action events center at http://www.kleercut.net/nov3events?lst to find and RSVP for an event in your area, or list your own event!

If you can commit to flyering for an hour at your local grocery store, list it so others can join you. Every flyer, poster, phone call and petition signature turns up the heat on these tissue tyrants. We’ve put together a downloadable day of action kit with everything you’ll need, including event how-to’s, flyers, posters, and petitions.

On November 3rd, tell your neighbors, your friends, your family, and your local grocery store shoppers that buying Kleenex is blowing away one of the oldest and rarest forests on Earth.

Feel free to email usa@kleercut.net if you have any questions or need advice. And be sure to check out http://www.kleercut.net for more info.

See you in the streets!

PS…If you haven’t already, don’t forget to visit our action center to send a message to Kimberly-Clark!

http://www.kleercut.net/sendamessage?lst

by Greenpeace investigation

Sat, October 22, 2005 - 1:06 PM http://YubaNet.com

Sci/Tech Criminal trail of rainforest timber unveiled by Greenpeace investigation Author: Greenpeace Published on October 19, 2005, 07:56

A criminal trail of illegally logged timber from the world's last rainforests, which is 'laundered' in China before arriving in Europe, the USA and other consumer countries, has been uncovered by a major Greenpeace investigation.

Shortly after 7.30am this morning, Greenpeace activists blockaded government offices in London in protest. The activists dumped over a tonne of plywood secured with large chains over the entrance to DEFRA, the UK Government's department responsible for the environment. Two activists chained themselves to the plywood to prevent it being removed, and climbers scaled the outside of the building and secured a banner reading 'Ban Illegal Timber'.

"Governments around the world have known about this problem for years and they've done absolutely nothing about it. Illegally logged timber products from the world's last rainforests are sold openly around the world. This criminal trade must be prohibited immediately," said Phil Aikman, Greenpeace International forests campaigner.

Greenpeace has found that timber from the rainforests of Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and Gabon is routinely logged illegally, shipped to China and transformed into plywood before being exported around the world. Many of the companies that log the tropical timber are known to be involved in criminal activities. In Papua New Guinea, for example, the logging industry is dominated by Malaysian logging giant Rimbunan Hijau, a company that has been directly linked not only to environmental destruction, but also to human rights abuses including torture and rape. "China is by far the largest importer of rainforest destruction in the world," said Aikman. "For every ten tropical logs shipped from the world's threatened rainforests, five are destined for China."

A new report, Partners in Crime, published by Greenpeace UK, explains the 14,000 mile journey taken by illegally logged timber from Papua New Guinea, home to animals and plants found nowhere else on the planet. This timber was traced back to UK ports, building sites and builders' merchants via the processing mills of China, where it is transformed into plywood and then exported to markets around the world. US owned 'Wolseley', the world's largest heating and plumbing company, is one of those identified selling such products in the UK.

Illegally logged rainforest timber was found at Chinese plywood mills destined for several other European destinations. Rainforest timber from Gabon, home to some of Africa's last great apes, was found marked for export to the USA.

Greenpeace is calling on governments to introduce legislation to ban the import of illegal timber and to support sustainable forest management globally.

Greenpeace is an independent campaigning organization, which uses non-violent, creative communication tools to put the spotlight on global environmental problems, and to drive towards solutions essential for a green and peaceful future.


Informant: Scott Munson

BBC News [UK]

10/21/05

Scientists from Brazil and the US say new research suggests deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon has been underestimated by at least 60%. The team has completed a study using a more advanced technique of satellite imagery that can pick up more types of logging activity. These include selective logging, where loggers pick out trees of value but leave the surrounding forest intact. Brazil's government welcomed the report but said the figures were exaggerated. … The researchers concluded that the area of rainforest destroyed between 1999 and 2002 was thousands of square kilometres bigger than previously thought. They also found that about 25% more carbon had been released into the atmosphere than estimated -- possibly enough to affect climate change...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4362760.stm


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Unidentified activists have provided us with photographic evidence of fraudulant logging by Boise Cascade in the Fischer Timber Sale. These pictures were taken in an area of our National Forest currently closed to public entry, so those who collected this damning information risked legal penalties to do so.

Images available online at
http://community.webshots.com/user/justinrr
See the "Ongoing Logging" album.

Some of the very first logging took place directly in the camp of forest defenders, with trees felled inches from tents and gear in a clear sign of intimidation and harrassment. Photographs of this are in the "Logging in Camp" album.

Want to get involved in the ongoing campaign to save the Fischer old growth and hold the line against Boise Cascade's broken environmental promises? Contact me, Justin, with the Seattle Rainforest Action Group today!

See you in the forest and on the streets, Justin

Justin Rolfe-Redding ~Seattle Rainforest Action Group~
(503) 261-3349


Informant: Deane

Write to the European Commission
http://prefs.greenpeace.org/mail-links/clicks/9889.1909709.5409

Read about recent Greenpeace actions against illegal timber imports
http://prefs.greenpeace.org/mail-links/clicks/9892.1909709.5409

Learn more about illegal logging
http://prefs.greenpeace.org/mail-links/clicks/9893.1909709.5409

http://internacional.radiobras.gov.br/ingles/materia_i_2004.php?materia=243772&q=1&editoria=


Informant: NHNE

Story from indymedia about the ongoing decimation of the Sequoia forests, located at the Southern tip of the Sierra Nevadas. Sierra Nevada Earth First! is coordinating much of the effort to oppose this logging and need help! Please visit

http://www.sierranevadaearthfirst.org/main.asp

See this link for pictures:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/10/1773786.php

Despite a recent federal court ruling, timber cutting continues in and near the Sequoia National Monument. On September 9th, Justice Charles Breyer from the US District Court for the northern district of California halted logging on a 2,000 acre commercial logging project called the Saddle fuel reduction sale. However, the ruling left open the fate of the Ice, White, and Frog timber sales, all of which are areas contiguous with or in the immediate proximity of the Saddle project. The focus of Breyer’s ruling was the absence of credible scientific evidence in the Forest Service’s guidelines for these timber sales. Of particular concern was the critical condition of the Pacific fisher population in the southern Sierras. Further decrease in canopy cover and disruption of fisher habitat could likely bring about the extinction of the species (the Bush administration has refused to accept the recommendation of scientists for listing the southern fisher as an endangered species). In addition Breyer held that the Forest Service had not established a credible scientific basis for cutting trees up to thirty inches in diameter (94 inches in circumference). Given the growing conditions in the Sierras trees of this size can be up to two hundred years old.

Sierra Nevada Earth First! activists were in the woods again this past weekend surveying timber sale units in the Frog, White, and Ice sale areas. The following is one activist’s account (the activist preferred to remain nameless):

We were finishing two days of surveying; we had seen some areas of uncut, healthy forests and some dried out, damned forests that had already been lost. On Sunday at 5 pm, in one of the Ice units, we witnessed helicopter logging first hand. We were all nearly in tears. In fact, it made us sick to our stomachs. We had just hiked through pristine forest, some of the best, oldest and most beautiful forest we had seen so far--heavy canopy cover, cool and damp down below with lots of moss and lichens, an open forest floor without too much undergrowth or small trees—these were steep slopes with old, rotting trees, a thick forest carpet, big trees. Perfect habitat for the endangered pacific fisher, and a home to innumerable animals and plants. Then we heard the choppers and headed up the road. I remember seeing a golden eagle soaring up above—she must have been crying too. We moved in carefully and watched as an identical forest area, a half a mile or so away from where we had just been, was torn to shreds. A red and white helicopter swept in low; men in orange vests hooked up the big trees to the helicopter’s cable and the chopper flew them out to the loading area. With a few limbs still attached, the poor trees looked like corpses, or lynching victims, or cows with hooks in their heels, hanging above the killing floor, waiting to be slaughtered. You don’t think too much about how much a ninety foot tall, 200 year old Ponderosa Pine weighs. But you sure do when a chopper drops it in the loading area and the ground just shakes.

We’re a pretty loud and outrageous crew of forest defenders, but nobody had much to say after seeing that level of chaos and destruction. The car ride down the mountain was pretty f... quiet. Maybe everybody was thinking what I was thinking—“what are we doing to ourselves?” Or maybe they were wondering what anybody could do against that level of an attack on Mother Earth. Or maybe they just couldn’t think of any words to fit the magnitude of that destruction. I know we were also meditating on how to stop it, cause that’s all that counts.

The forests up here are criss-crossed with hundreds of miles of logging roads. Quads, dirt bikes, and off-roaders hurl around spewing up dust. Hunters blast away at whatever animal is “in season.” But I have never, ever seen anything like what I saw yesterday. I don’t think the fisher has a chance.

Readers are urged to contact the Sierra Club information@sierraclub.org , Earth Justice info@earthjustice.org , and/or Sequoia Forest Keeper ara@sequoiaforestkeeper.org , and encourage them to petition the court to stop all logging in the fisher habitat of the Sequoia National Forest.


Informant: faradawn

Did you know that it takes 90 years to grow a box of Kleenex? That's right, every time you use a Kleenex tissue, you are blowing away ancient forests. That's because Kimberly-Clark, maker of Kleenex and other toilet and tissue products, all but refuses to use recycled paper in its products. Instead, Kimberly-Clark is clearcutting some of the rarest and oldest forests on Earth - just to create disposable paper products.

Take action now to tell Kimberly-Clark to Stop Clearcutting Ancient Forests

Write to Kimberly-Clark
http://prefs.greenpeace.org/mail-links/clicks/9832.1905387.1678753

Take other Kleenex actions
http://prefs.greenpeace.org/mail-links/clicks/9833.1905387.1678753

As you read this message, Kimberly-Clark http://www.kleercut.net/is clear-cutting ancient forests to make Kleenex and toilet paper. As the world's largest manufacturer of tissue products, K-C is in a unique position to damage or destroy entire ecosystems. Only 20% of our ancient forests remain and they are too precious to throw away or flush down the toilet!

*Join Greenpeace to take on the tissue tyrants: *Greenpeace is working with folks throughout North America to protect these endangered forests and the people and wildlife living in them by mobilizing pressure against Kimberly-Clark.

You can help!

*1) Take action today*

Send an email to Kimberly Clark CEO Thomas Frank at
http://kleercut.net/sendamessage?lst . *Read more about the campaign at http://www.kleercut.net

*2) Host a House Party *

Host a Greenpeace House Party on October 27^th and join activists around the country. Meet other people who care about our environment and learn how you can help! Greenpeace will provide a video for your party to watch, and will host a conference call. Email usa@kleercut.net for more information.

*3) November 3^rd Day of Action*

Mark your calendars! November 3^rd is an international day of action to save the Boreal Forest, North America's largest wilderness tract, the size of 13 Californias! Join campuses and communities around the world to stop K-C from trashing the Boreal. Check out the Kleercut Action Pack at http://kleercut.net/en/actionpack?lst for ideas on what you can do on November 3^rd . Download stickers, posters and fliers, and join a local Kleercut Group
http://kleercut.net/en/getlocal?lst . Email usa@kleercut.net with any questions.

Some businesses make an effort to meet the needs of their customers. Then there's Kimberly-Clark. If they can make a tissue that limits the spread of the flu, certainly they can make a tissue that doesn't flush away old-growth forests. It's obvious that the 'Kleercut' campaign is being discussed at the highest levels of the Kimberly-Clark corporation. That's a great start, but now it's time to increase the pressure so the company stops discussing and starts acting!

See you in the trenches,

Beka and Lindsey
Greenpeace USA
Forest Campaign

http://www.kleercut.net
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa