Environmentalists challenge ‘green’ logging claims

SEATTLE – Two of the nation’s largest timber companies, Weyerhaeuser and Plum Creek Timber, have polished their public images for years by participating in a program that certifies that their logging is environmentally friendly.

But in separate challenges this month from the far corners of the United States, environmental groups in Washington state and in Maine are accusing Weyerhaeuser and Plum Creek of using the forest industry’s green-labeling program as a cover while they log in ways that harm endangered spotted owls in Washington and violate forestry laws in Maine.

The Seattle Audubon Society and the Natural Resources Council of Maine have demanded in documents sent to the office of the Sustainable Forestry Board that it revoke certification for the companies until they comply with standards they have pledged to uphold.

Both companies say the demands are unjustified and ignorant of relevant facts.

The requests mark the first time that mainstream environmental groups have publicly attempted to turn the forest industry’s certification process against big timber companies by insisting that they be suspended from the program, the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, said William Banzhaf, president of the forestry board, which oversees certification.

Green labeling is a major marketing tool in the timber industry. It allows companies to reach a bigger marketplace while assuring increasingly sophisticated consumers that their purchases are not harming the environment.

The Seattle Audubon Society and the Natural Resources Council of Maine argue that the Sustainable Forest Initiative could lose all credibility if its board does not suspend Weyerhaeuser and Plum Creek until they clean up their forestry practices.

Banzhaf, president of the Sustainable Forestry Board, said the complaints from responsible environmental groups in Washington and Maine are an “important” challenge to the certification system and will be thoroughly investigated.

At the same time, Banzhaf defends the integrity of the SFI certification process, noting that since 2002 it has been “independent of all influence by the forestry trade association.”

The separate but nearly simultaneous challenges to the forest industry’s certification program appear to be a coincidence.

The Seattle Audubon Society does not allege that Weyerhaeuser, the largest manager of timberlands in the world, broke any state or federal laws. But Audubon argues that the company logged its forestland in southwestern Washington in a way that harmed the habitat of four endangered Northern spotted owls and violated SFI certification standards by failing to “protect known sites” of imperiled creatures.