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Demand RAN stop supporting primary forest logging and immediately resign from FSC  (link)

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Seeking to protect primary rainforests through destructive first time logging is laughable

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Dear Naomi Klein, Last month thousands of grassroots rainforests activists petitioned you to disassociate yourself from Rainforest Action Network’s greenwash of FSC primary forest logging. While many of us were pleased you chose to respond, your endorsement of RAN greenwash and primary forest logging was misinformed and uneducated. It showed clearly that you are not an ecologist, and that you had not researched beyond what RAN had told you. The question is not whether RAN has some nice people working for it and does some good work. The issue is whether green NGOs collecting money for rainforest protection should majorly support organizations active in carrying out primary rainforest logging. RAN is way more than a member of FSC. They founded the organization. They have been active for over 15 years in its management. And they have failed to ever control FSC's growing dependence upon primary forest timbers to meet demand for certified timbers and pulp. You acknowledge “FSC is a deeply imperfect body and it certifies some large projects that are damaging and unworthy of the label." This is a profound understatement and extremely misleading. Are you aware that best estimates are that 60% of FSC's timber and pulp come from cutting ancient rainforests and other old forests, over 320,000,000 acres, the size of South Africa? This is beyond imperfect, it is ecocide, cutting the world's last primary old forest wildernesses for such necessities as toilet paper and lawn furniture. Your go on to state you “oppose the logging of primary and old growth forest, and I oppose monoculture tree plantations”. Well then you Naomi are guilty of doublespeak. FSC's entire existence depends upon access to primary forests, to eventually convert them to plantations. RAN, Greenpeace, WWF and now you provide crucial cover for doing so. Why is it Naomi you can envision a world without oil, tar sands, corporations but not one without cutting five-hundred year old trees in millions of year old ecosystems? The primary forest timber trade is a text book example of disaster capitalism. False promises of sustainable forestry are being used right now to pry open the Democratic Republic of Congo's primary rainforests, as has happened many times elsewhere. You are guilty of lack of imagination, saying that FSC is better than programs controlled by industry, and you need paper for your books. There is another option - you and the world could learn to live without old forest timbers (they are going to run out soon anyway). The market for forest fibers could be met by local peoples managing primary forests using small scale eco-forestry, and we could get most of our timber and pulp from natural plantations and secondary growth. There is more at stake than publishing your books here Naomi. The Earth's biosphere is powered by intact terrestrial ecosystems, and we have already lost more than global ecosystems can bear. Further, could you please provide documentation showing RAN is fighting from within FSC for better standards, and that they have accomplished a single victory however small? You can't because they haven't. Instead, with their presence RAN provides crucial greenwash that stops the global grassroots forest movement from ending such ecocide. You frankly don't know what you are talking about if you call RAN’s response "transparent". RAN has censored their facebook and twitter of any discussion of this matter, made promises to openly review their policies on at least two occasions (which they broke), and despite tens of thousands protesting have never responded at length or substantively to any of our concerns. RAN has never provided an ecological justification for their treachery. And they have sought to discredit opponents by casting aspersions upon everything from their mental health to diligence of their PhD studies. Why can't RAN operate openly and transparently? This is no way to make global forest policy or to seek to avert ecocide as global ecosystems are collapsing around us. Whether to improve primary rainforest and other old forest logging - or ban it for community eco-forestry and other fiber and timber sources – is a fundamental issue of principle based upon the truths found in ecological science, not some minor tactical difference as you suggest. Unity is desired by all – but must never come at the cost of pursuing the wrong or insufficient polices to sustain global ecological systems. I know you are not an academic Naomi, but frankly we expected more insight from you on this crucial matter. We demand that you retract your endorsement of primary forest logging, and end your association with RAN until they resign from FSC greenwash. Yours sincerely,

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