Читать книгу Like a Tree - Jean Shinoda Bolen - Страница 13

The conifers are the trees I have most bonded with, and there is a geographic affinity between California and the North American boreal conifer forests that draws me to their plight. How many pine trees are cut down is a market supply and demand decision. Whether it is done with consideration for watersheds, habitats for wildlife, or generations to come (indigenous North American tribal wisdom considered the effect of their actions on the next seven generations) is a corporate decision made by people, who do so either because they are wise or to ward off negative publicity, which would be bad for business.

Greenpeace waged a successful five-year “Kleercut” campaign to demand that Kimberly-Clark, the company that makes Kleenex, Scott, and Cottonelle paper products stop destroying ancient boreal forest trees. In August 2009, as a result of public pressure, Kimberly-Clark announced that it set a goal of obtaining 100 percent of the wood fiber used in its products from environmentally responsible sources. By 2011, Kimberly-Clark promised that 40 percent of its North American fiber will be either recycled or certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (an independent, non-governmental, nonprofit global organization that certifies and labels lumber from responsibly managed forests).

In June 2009, Greenpeace published the report “Slaughtering the Amazon,” which traced cattle products (leather and beef) used in top brand running shoes, designer handbags, clothes, and fast food directly back to their origin, to ranches in the Amazon. The Brazilian cattle industry accounts for roughly 80 percent of Amazon deforestation and 14 percent of the world's annual forest loss. Greenpeace called for an immediate moratorium on further Amazon deforestation and named the companies that may be unwittingly contributing to this (and human rights abuses) through their raw material purchases. The leading global brands named were Adidas/Reebok, Nike, Carrefour, Eurostar, Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, Toyota, Honda, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Prada, IKEA, Kraft, Tesco, and Wal-Mart.

One week after the report was published, Brazil's largest supermarket chains, including Wal-Mart and Carrefour, announced that they would be suspending their contracts with suppliers found to be involved in Amazon deforestation and would develop guidelines to ensure that cattle products were not from illegally cleared Amazon lands. The Brazilian government also responded. A federal prosecutor filed a billion-dollar suit against the cattle industry for environmental damage. Firms that sell this tainted beef may now be fined 500 reals ($260) per kilo (2.2 pounds).

There are activists who volunteer to be on the frontlines in their efforts to stop the clear-cutting and killing of endangered species. Success at the site means they interfered and stopped the destruction, often in spite of physical dangers from men whose livelihood or profits are interfered with. Success overall, such as this Greenpeace example in the Amazon, involved combining on-site activism with the skills and connections of activists who can get media attention and government action. This may turn out to be just a holding action that warded off the forces of greed or need for a time, and just in this one place. Or, in my more optimistic overview, this is a holding action (and there are others) that spares trees until environmentalism and saving trees rather than cutting them down becomes profitable.

As awareness of global warming increases, more tourists than ever are opting for eco-friendly holidays, which is one way saving trees and profitability may be coming together. In an October 2010 announcement, Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Executive Director, said: “National parks and protected areas represent one key and successful response to conserving and managing this planet's nature-based assets. And in a way that can generate revenues and livelihoods for local communities. Indeed, by some estimates, $1-$2 billion of global tourism is linked to the world's network of around 150,000 protected sites.” Protected sites are included under ecotourism, which takes 77 billion of the global tourism market and is growing (UNEP online).