ForestEthics Targets Catalog Industry's Paper Habits

CHICAGO, Illinois, May 4, 2004 (ENS) - Participants entering McCormick Place Monday for the opening of the Direct Marketing Association's annual Catalog Conference were met by activists protesting the industry’s destruction of the northern boreal forest of Canada to make catalogs. An inflatable caribou dramatized the point that this northern forest is inhabited by some of the world’s largest populations of woodland caribou.

The catalog industry sends out over 17 billion catalogs a year in the United States, many produced on paper that comes from endangered forests, including those in the Canadian boreal forest, say the demonstrators, who represent the U.S. and Canadian organization ForestEthics.

Canada’s boreal region, the largest remaining wilderness in North America, stretches from Alaska to the Atlantic Ocean, providing nesting grounds for some three billion North American birds.

A spokesperson from Chicago Bird Conservation Network was pointed out that birds flying across Chicago now, right across the street from the catalog conference, are en route to their boreal nesting grounds.

“So long as this industry sources from endangered forests in the Canadian Boreal, we have a choice between billions of catalogs or billions of birds,” said Evan Thomas Paul, paper campaigner for ForestEthics. “We don’t want to see their habitat migrating to your mailbox.”

At the catalog conference Norm Thompson Outfitters set a new industry standard for catalog companies by announcing a new policy to print its millions of catalogs on paper that does not come from endangered forests. Environmental groups have worked with Norm Thompson management over the past two years to create this policy.

“We are very concerned about the controversy surrounding logging in areas deemed endangered, such as the Canadian boreal. For several years we have been committed to partnering with environmental groups, paper suppliers and our catalog colleagues in finding constructive ways to protect forests," said John Emrick, president and CEO of Norm Thompson Outfitters, publishers of Norm Thompson, Solutions and Sahalie by Early Winters catalogs, in a statement on his website Monday. "With our new policy we are trying to take a reasonable leadership position on this complex issue. Together we all can make a positive difference," he said.

For 50 years Norm Thompson has offered clothing, footwear and accessories for men and women, as well as travel gear, home decor and gourmet foods. The company also operates retail stores in the Portland, Oregon area.

“Norm Thompson Outfitters has taken a leadership position by committing to eliminate fiber from endangered forests and to move even more aggressively toward recycled paper,” said Todd Paglia, executive director of ForestEthics. “Smart and ethical catalog companies will follow Norm Thompson’s lead instead of risking their brand equity by being linked to the destruction of endangered forests like the great Canadian boreal.”

ForestEthics got its start in 1994 as the Clayoquot Rainforest Coalition, working to save Clayoquot Sound, the largest remaining area of intact temperate rainforest on Vancouver Island on Canada’s west coast. In 1996, the coalition arranged to preserve much of Clayoquot Sound from logging, and expanded its mission to seek protection of the entire coastal rainforest of British Columbia.

In 2001, after partnering in one of the largest temperate rainforest conservation agreements in Canadian history, the coalition was restructured to create a new organization, ForestEthics, and broadened its mission to protect all endangered forests by redirecting markets toward ecologically sound alternatives.

The 17 billion catalogs produced each year equal 59 catalogs for every man, woman and child in the United States. ForestEthics wants the catalog industry to realize that almost none of this paper contains recycled content. Almost eight million tons of trees go into catalogs that are often discarded or unread.

Now ForestEthics and its allies are turning their campaign focus towards the catalog industry. The conservationists want the industry to stop buying paper from endangered forests, maximize post-consumer recycled content in catalogs, reduce waste and unwanted mailings, and join the environmental community in transforming the paper industry.