Logging is destroying southern forests — and dividing US environmentalists

More than 150 conservation, environmental, and social justice organizations have accused The Nature Conservancy of "promoting false climate solutions."

Logging is destroying southern forests — and dividing US environmentalists

Maps Give Detailed Look at Dramatic Land Use Change Over Two Decades - Yale E360

Landscape change between 1992 and 2015. White reflects little change. Darker shades reflect the greatest rate of change in each category. CREDIT: TOMASZ STEPINSKI/UC

A new map that stitches together 24 years of satellite observations provides a detailed look at striking changes in land use and widespread environmental degradation. According to the map, 22 percent of Earth’s habitable surface has been significantly altered since 1992, primarily from agricultural-driven deforestation.

“We already knew about deforestation or wetland loss or increasing urbanization,” said Tomasz Stepinski, a geographer at the University of Cincinnati and a co-author of the new map. “But now we can see exactly where all of that is happening… What makes this so depressing is that it’s examining a timescale that is shorter than our lifetime.”

The map illustrates widespread losses of wetlands in the Southeastern United States; the rapid disappearance of the Aral Sea, which “dried up in the 1990s after farmers in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan diverted its tributaries for cotton fields,” a press release explained; deforestation in the tropics; and the expansion of the Sahara Desert…

more: Maps Give Detailed Look at Dramatic Land Use Change Over Two Decades - Yale E360

Climate: A New Story | Charles Eisenstein

Flipping the script on climate change, Eisenstein makes a case for a wholesale reimagining of the framing, tactics, and goals we employ in our journey to heal from ecological destruction

With research and insight, Charles Eisenstein details how the quantification of the natural world leads to a lack of integration and our “fight” mentality. With an entire chapter unpacking the climate change denier’s point of view, he advocates for expanding our exclusive focus on carbon emissions to see the broader picture beyond our short-sighted and incomplete approach. The rivers, forests, and creatures of the natural and material world are sacred and valuable in their own right, not simply for carbon credits or preventing the extinction of one species versus another. After all, when you ask someone why they first became an environmentalist, they’re likely to point to the river they played in, the ocean they visited, the wild animals they observed, or the trees they climbed when they were a kid. This refocusing away from impending catastrophe and our inevitable doom cultivates meaningful emotional and psychological connections and provides real, actionable steps to caring for the earth. Freeing ourselves from a war mentality and seeing the bigger picture of how everything from prison reform to saving the whales can contribute to our planetary ecological health, we resist reflexive postures of solution and blame and reach toward the deep place where commitment lives.

The print version is available on Amazon or from the publisher directly. Other online booksellers, such as IndieBound carry the book as well. Or better yet, ask for it at your local bookstore.

Climate: A New Story | Charles Eisenstein

Science Says Saving the Planet Could Really Be as Simple as Saving Trees – Mother Jones

The role of forests in combating climate change risks being overlooked by the world’s governments, according to a group of scientists that has warned halting deforestation is “just as urgent” as eliminating the use of fossil fuels.

Science Says Saving the Planet Could Really Be as Simple as Saving Trees – Mother Jones

Here's how to respond to those misleading posts claiming our recent fires are all about tree huggers | President Trump is wrong about wildfire prevention (Opinion) - CNN

just a few items cobbled together...

this first one thanks to California Chaparral Institute on Facebook –

Here's how to respond to those misleading posts claiming our recent fires are all about tree huggers preventing logging and a supposed fuel build up via past fire suppression.

1. Most of California's most devastating fires were far from any forest (see map below).

2. For those few devastating fires that were near forests, all of those forests around the communities destroyed had the kind of suggested thinning and fuel treatments misinformed commentators claim didn't exist.

3. Much of the area around Paradise that burned in the Camp Fire had burned 10 years ago, had been salvage logged, and was composed of habitats other than forest (e.g. post fire shrublands). The wind-driven ember rain that destroyed the town came primarily from open grassland/post fire/mixed woodland environments northeast of the town. A large percentage of the trees within the devastated town did not burn. See the fire progression map here and match it with the current view on Google Earth:
https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/map/6250/4/90791

4. Climate change is drying the state. Dryer conditions lead to a more flammable landscape. We may see more of the kind of winds that powered the Camp Fire into Paradise. More fires will dramatically alter the kinds of habitats we are used to seeing. Non-native weed filled landscapes that dominate places like Riverside County will likely become more common. More on this issue here:
http://www.californiachaparral.com/threatstochaparral.html

It is more than discouraging when someone claims our wildfires are all about forests, dead trees, lack of logging, or unnatural fuel build up via past fire suppression. Such claims are a disservice to the families who have lost so much and hamper our efforts to solve the problem.

What is it about? Flammable homes and communities located on flammable terrain.

Please see our solutions in our letter to Governor Brown below.

Here is a well-researched article on the Woolsey Fire from the LA Times:
http://www.latimes.com/proj…/la-me-woolsey-fire-progression/

Here's how to protect your home from wildfire:
http://www.californiachaparral.com/bprotectingyourhome.html

Here's our information flyer on external sprinklers:
http://www.californiachaparral.com/…/INDEPENDENT_EXTERNAL_S…

Here's why Governor Brown and the California State Legislature failed us - they ignored the real problem:
http://www.californiachaparral.com/…/Gov_Brown_2017_Wildfir…

Here are the most devastating wildfires in California to November 17, 2018 (fire, structures burned, fatalities):

Fires 2017-2018
Camp/12,263/71 (as of 11/17/2018)*
Tubbs/ 5636/ 22
Redwood/ 546 / 9
Carr/ 1599/ 8
Atlas/ 783/ 6
Nuns/ 1355/ 3
Woolsey/500+/3 (as of 11/17/2018)
Thomas/ 1063/ 2
Ferguson/ 131/ 2
Mendocino/ 277/ 1

Previous devastating fires prior to 2017 where losses were also unrelated to forests and dead trees:
Tunnel (1991)/ 2900 /25
Cedar (2003)/ 2820/ 15
Harris (2007)/ 548/ 8
Old (2003)/ 1003/ 6
Witch Creek (2007)/ 1650/ 2
Butte (2015)/ 921/ 2
Jones (1999)/ 954/ 1
Paint (1990)/ 641/ 1

Significant forested area involved, but not seriously impacted by dead trees:
Valley (2015)/ 1955/ 4
*Camp Fire involved forest within the fire perimeter, but most of the area within/near the devastated town of Paradise was a mix of habitats.

President Trump is wrong about wildfire prevention (Opinion) - CNN

(CNN)With the shocking loss of thousands of homes and dozens of lives in the Camp and Woolsey fires in Northern and Southern California, people are looking for answers as they try to understand how a tragedy such as this can be prevented in the future.

As people struggled to evacuate, President Donald Trump in a tweet blamed the fires on poor forest management and repeated the claims before his visit to California. While Trump did not explicitly call for an expansion of logging in his latest response, he has previously touted this strategy as a way to curb fires. Meanwhile, the federal government is moving to allow commercial logging in areas such as the Los Padres National Forest outside Santa Barbara, claiming it will prevent fires. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has also blamed "environmental terrorist groups" for preventing the government from properly managing forests.

It is deeply troubling that Trump and his administration would support logging as a way to curb fires when studies have shown it's ineffective. In the most comprehensive scientific analysis conducted on the issue of forest management and fire intensity -- which looked at more than 1,500 fires on tens of millions of acres across the Western United States over three decades -- we found that forests with the fewest environmental protections and the most logging actually tend to burn much more intensely, not less.

This may seem counterintuitive, but logging leaves behind combustible twigs and branches on the forest floor, which can make fires spread faster. It also reduces the cooling shade of the forest canopy, which creates hotter and drier conditions, and the invasive weeds that take over readily burn. Denser forests buffer and reduce the winds that drive wildland fires, but this effect is largely eliminated by logging.

The fact is that Northern California's Butte County, which has been ravaged by the Camp Fire, had been heavily logged in previous years. In the area immediately to the east of Paradise, dead trees had been extensively logged and removed on both private and public lands, and commercial "thinning" operations had been conducted across large expanses of the nearby Plumas National Forest, supposedly to protect nearby towns from wild land fire…

more: President Trump is wrong about wildfire prevention (Opinion) - CNN

As California Burns, Trump and Zinke Use Catastrophe to Benefit Industry | Earthjustice

U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke wrote recently that “radical environmentalists would rather see forest and communities burn than see a logger in the woods. ” In Zinke’s zero-sum equation, the devastating wildfires in California would stop if those radical environmentalists would let the timber industry cut down more trees.

The truth is that Zinke and House Republicans are using the destruction across the West as an excuse to chip away at bedrock environmental laws created to ensure that science drives decisions about the future of our nation’s forests.

Everyone agrees that we must protect homes and lives from the catastrophic effects of fires, but Zinke’s argument is dangerously oversimplified, cynically disingenuous and downright false. And that’s not the worst part. He also proclaims that climate change has “nothing to do” with these wildfires, even as scientists and firefighting officials unanimously assert that climate change is creating the conditions that allow destructive wildfires to thrive. These types of fires will only grow in intensity and frequency if we do nothing to address climate change…

more: As California Burns, Trump and Zinke Use Catastrophe to Benefit Industry | Earthjustice

see also: 

Trump, offering no evidence, blames deadly California fires on “gross mismanagement of the forests”

Camp Fire: The Terrifying Science Behind California’s Massive Blaze | WIRED

#Trees

fantastic ancient tree

pic found on this page:

Druids , Druidism And The Celts

http://the-shaman.com/druids-druidism-celts/

(on Facebook) Robert Cherwink

@Sonoma Mountain Zen Center

native trees – buckeye and oak which i planted together as seeds some 40 years ago 

search this blog –
what next: forests
what next: trees

turning desert into forest :)

An amazing forest in the desert

Forests are springing up in the Egyptian desert. But they're not mirages. Scientists have found a way to grow trees there using sewage

.

Te Urewera national park has been granted legal personhood, meaning nobody owns it, and it has the same rights and powers as a citizen

Te Urewera national park has been granted legal personhood, meaning nobody owns it. The park has the same rights and powers as a citizen. The ruling could set a new precedent for land rights and conservation around the world.


original post on Facebook:

The Guardian

September 3 at 2:20am 

Tidings to All Ye Who Would Build Pipelines Here: From Southern Oregon Rising Tide | Earth First! Newswire

Dear Jordan Cove & Pacific Connector,Happy fracking holidays! It’s a snowy December here in Southern Oregon and we hope everyone involved with the Pacific Connector Pipeline and Jordan Cove LNG export project is keeping us in your thoughts... [more]

from Southern Oregon Rising Tide

Over the holidays, Southern Oregon Rising Tide mailed festive postcards to several of their fracking foes with a special message: Bring the pipeline, expect resistance. Donning elf hats and tree-climbing apparel, SORT members scaled a snow laden doug fir tree that stands in the path of the proposed Pacific Connector Pipeline near Ashland, OR...

more: Tidings to All Ye Who Would Build Pipelines Here: From Southern Oregon Rising Tide | Earth First! Newswire

Earth First! Newswire | Media from the Frontlines of Ecological Resistance.

via @submedia

Tidings to All Ye Who Would Build Pipelines Here: From Southern Oregon Rising Tide: "We wish you a 2016 of low... https://t.co/92wdutBB4t

29 Dec 15 - @submedia on Twitter

On The Division Economy in Barriere Lake, Louise Wawatie Interview

On The Division Economy in Barriere Lake, Louise Wawatie Interview - YouTube

"Traditional Council of Elders and women have taken a march in the area of Poigan today in our unceded Algonquin Territory. When territories was given to our passed on elders..it wasnt to own the territory but a duty to safeguard the land..today the women have taken a step to honour our ancestors, Mother Earth and its all its creation..Its to nobally bring back the duty to safeguard the land witout making any agreements for $$$ and only to stop all logging activities that endangers our way of life and culture for future generations to carry on.."

A Clear Cut Clarity - Trilateral Fraud - Louise Wawatie - YouTube

Grandma Louise Wawatie addresses the Elders Council of the Traditional Algonquin Nation of the One Nation.

Plundering Appalachia - The Tragedy of Mountaintop-Removal Coal Mining

Plundering Appalachia - The Tragedy of Mountaintop-Removal Coal Mining - YouTube

Appalachia, a region of extraordinary beauty and natural diversity, is under attack. Mountaintop removal is strip mining on steroids—a radically destructive form of surface mining whereby coal companies bulldoze the forest, decapitate the peaks with explosives, push the shattered rubble into adjacent valleys, and destroy the ecologically crucial headwater streams that had been there before. This is an ecological and human tragedy of epic proportions—and yet few Americans realize how the coal industry, seeking maxium profit and abetted by lax government regulation, is turning an entire region into an undeclared national energy sacrifice zone.

Plundering Appalachia is a searing exposé, in words and images, of the greatest ecological calamity now being wreaked upon America—an outrage justified by the desire for “cheap” power. With large-format photography and engaging writing from Wendell Berry, Judy Bonds, Ross Gelbspan, Denise Giardina, Richard Heinberg, Mary Anne Hitt, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., David Orr, Carl Pope, Erik Reece, Vivian Stockman, and others, Plundering Appalachia illuminates Big Coal’s assault on the people and wildlife of the region. The book includes first-person testimonies from coalfields residents about life in the shadow of mountaintop-mining operations, and dissects the current coal-powered energy economy that is toxic to people and nature—and helping cook the planet.

www.plunderingappalachia.org

Fight Oil with Water: Chevron's Embarrassment in Ecuador

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Every day Chevron tries desperately to greenwash its image. "We Agree" and "Will You Join Us" are perfect examples of empty gestures aimed at making Chevron appear the "good" oil company. The reality is, millions of dollars blown on ad campaigns and PR firms like Sam Singer in San Francisco do nothing to alleviate environmental damage and human suffering caused by their operations. Chevron even convinced Business and Social Responsibility to feature the company as a leader for "community engagement."

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AMAZON WATCH | Fight Oil with Water: Chevron's Embarrassment in Ecuador

How can you help the communities of the Amazon fighting oil contamination and a historic health crisis? With water.

Use the tools on this page to help spread the word about ClearWater, a community-led project that is providing immediate relief to the people of the Ecuadorean Amazon. The same powerful communities that have been waging a 19-year battle to bring Chevron to justice for its toxic legacy in the Amazon are now building safe drinking water systems for themselves.

> Fight oil with water - Give ClearWater | Rainforest Action Network

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Forests: Greenpeace | Brazil | Zero Deforestation

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Protecting forests - Greenpeace

Greenpeace campaigns for forest protection because, without healthy, thriving forests, planet Earth cannot sustain life. As much as eighty per cent of the world's forests have been degraded or destroyed. Greenpeace is campaigning for zero deforestation by 2020 to protect what is left of these extraordinary ecosystems.

Evolving over millennia, tropical forests are one of the greatest storehouses of nature's diversity on Earth; of all of the world's land species, around two thirds live in forests. Many of these rare creatures - orang-utans, tigers, jaguars, forest elephants and rhinos - are increasingly threatened by extinction.

But the importance of forests stretches far beyond their own boundaries. Forests help to regulate the Earth's climate because they store nearly 300 billion tonnes of carbon in their living parts - roughly 40 times the annual greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels.

above photos © Greenpeace / Takeshi Mizukoshi | more

When they're destroyed through logging or burning, this carbon is released into the atmosphere as the climate changing greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide. The destruction of forests is responsible for up to a fifth of the world's greenhouse gas emissions - more than every plane, car, truck, ship and train on the planet combined.

Forests also regulate water flow and rainfall so we depend on them to grow our crops and food. The loss of forest in one part of the world can have severe impacts in another; forest loss in Amazonia and Central Africa can severely reduce rainfall in the USA Midwest, for example.

Man made fires to clear land for cattle or crops in Brazil.

With so many of the world's forests already destroyed, we urgently need to protect what is left. Yet industry is still relentlessly converting forests into disposable products that end up in our shopping baskets - while pushing species to the brink of extinction, destroying the lives and livelihoods of forest communities and exacerbating global climate change.

Greenpeace is campaigning for zero deforestation, globally, by 2020.

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more > Forests | Greenpeace International

About Greenpeace | Greenpeace

Greenpeace is the largest independent direct-action environmental organization in the world.

We do not take money from government or corporations. Our only bottom line is a green and peaceful future.

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Veto Brazil's Forest Code

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff can veto damaging changes to Brazil's Forest Code, which would weaken protections for the forest.

Dilma: save the Amazon, veto the new Forest Code

We are edging closer to an “ecological calamity” in the Amazon rainforest and a vote in the Brazilian Senate has pushed us closer to the brink. Yesterday it voted to approve destructive changes to the laws governing forest protection – called the Forest Code - that would open up the Amazon rainforest to rampant destruction. But it is not too late. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff will have the opportunity to veto the changes - you can ask her to protect the Amazon and veto the new Forest Code.

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Save the Amazon, veto the new Forest Code | Greenpeace International

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ticking climate bomb

Tropical forest destruction is responsible for about one-fifth of current global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.Keeping the global temperature increase below 2ºC (compared to pre-industrial levels) means GHG emissions must peak by 2015 and by this time the world must be set on track for drastic reductions in overall emissions.Ending deforestation in tropical forests is critical to protecting the global climate, biodiversity and forest dependent communities. Eliminating deforestation in just eight tropical countries – Bolivia, Brazil, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea – would nearly halve the annual rate of global forest loss.

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The Climate Bomb is Ticking -- Call for Zero Deforestation to Protect the Climate | Greenpeace International - (contains link for DOCUMENT "the-climate-bomb-is-ticking.pdf"

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Greenpeace 2011 in pics

Greenpeace 2011 in pics from Greenpeace

2011 was the year the bottom shook the top, the year the ballerina danced on the bull, and "The Protestor" was named Time Magazine person of the year. The faces in our Year in Pictures pay testament and tribute to our contribution and to the benefit of standing up and taking action.

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Year in Pictures 2011 | Greenpeace International

"Here at Greenpeace, bearing witness is one of our core principles. These multimedia photo-essays give a more in-depth look into just a few of the stories we've sent our photographers to cover."

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Photo Essays | Greenpeace International: Bearing witness - photo stories and documentary from around the world.

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Greenpeace Media

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Greenpeace International | Home

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Barbie Arrested | GlobaLove Think Tank | Freaking News | Mattel does right thing

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Barbie Arrested !!!

first she gets in trouble and dumped by Ken for destroying rain forests in Indonesia - now Barbie is in deep in Iran, called a 'Trojan horse' by government for peddling western influences like makeup and revealing clothes

Barbie's mugshot image by DocMinor of the Democrats for Barbie
Doll picture photoshop contest | FreakingNews.com

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TEHRAN, Iran - Police have closed down dozens of toy shops for selling Barbie dolls in Iran, part of a decades-long crackdown against "manifestations of Western culture," the semiofficial Mehr news agency reported Friday.

Barbie dolls are sold wearing swimsuits and miniskirts in a society where women must wear headscarves in public, and men and women are not allowed to swim together.

An Iranian shopkeeper arranges a display of dolls at her shop in Tehran, Iran, on Friday. Police have closed down dozens of toy shops for selling Barbie dolls, part of a decades-long crackdown on signs of Western culture. VAHID SALEMI/Associated Press

A ban on the sale of the Barbies, designed to look like young Western women, was imposed in the mid-1990s. In its latest report, Mehr quoted an unidentified police official as saying authorities confiscated the dolls from Tehran stores in a "new phase" of the campaign.

Crusade targets 'Trojan horse' that government claims sneaks in western influences like makeup and revealing clothes...

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Iran shuts down toy stores selling Barbie dolls | Tulsa World | Associated Press | 1/21/2012

In 2008, the Iranian judiciary warned against the "destructive" cultural and social consequences and "danger" of importing Barbie dolls and other Western toys. Even so, Iranian markets have been full of them. One-third of Iran's population of 75 million is under 15. (read more)

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GlobaLove Think Tank

I DREAM OF A STAR TREK WORLD. THIS THINK TANK WILL FOCUS ON CREATIVE ACTIONS DESIGNED TO INITIATE A GLOBAL PARADIGM SHIFT TOWARDS A WORLD WHERE RACISM, POVERTY AND WAR WILL BE A THING OF THE PAST.

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Freaking News

FreakingNews.com | picture by Chili

Obama comes out against current SOPA and PIPA legislation, but stops short of killing it

In an election year, the President has to walk a fine line, but the bills are far from being dead. While the White House came out and said that it wouldn’t support the current drafts of the legislation, it did say that it would support revised drafts. Hollywood is not going to let this go and they are going to call out favors for political donations.

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FreakingNews.com - News Photoshop Pictures Contests - home page

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see also > what next: Wikipedia blackout protesting Piracy Act

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trashing Indonesia's rainforests

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Toying with forest destruction

Toying with forest destruction
from Greenpeace

How Mattel, Disney, Hasbro and Lego are all implicated in trashing Indonesia's rainforests, including areas that are home to some of the last tigers, orang-utans and elephants. There's more at greenpeace.org/toys

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Barbie and Ken: The Breakup

Ken finds some hard truths about Barbie from Greenpeace on Vimeo.

Barbie and Ken: The Breakup | greenpeaceusa's Channel

On June 7th, following Ken's breakup with the iconic superstar, Barbie, Ken and 8 buddies staged a protest at Mattel headquarters in El Segundo, CA demanding that Mattel stop using packaging from materials produced by rainforest destroyers...

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Greenpeace accuses Barbie of destroying Indonesia | Reuters

JAKARTA | Wed Jun 8, 2011 - Greenpeace said on Wednesday it had evidence that Barbie doll packaging comes from Indonesian rainforests, accusing toy manufacturers such as Mattel and Walt Disney Co of contributing to the country's rapid deforestation.

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Barbie, It's Over

Barbie has a nasty deforestation habit - she is trashing rainforests in Indonesia, including areas that are home to some of the last tiger, orang-utans and elephants, just so she can wrap herself in pretty packaging.

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You did it!

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Mattel cuts ties with rainforest destruction.

Our campaign to get Mattel, the world’s biggest toy company, to stop doing business with Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) has ended in a resounding victory. This is great news for Indonesian rainforests and the communities and wildlife that depend on them. But there’s more.

Mattel has not only instructed its suppliers to avoid wood and paper from companies involved in controversial forest destruction like APP, but also to increase the amount of recycled paper and wood certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) in their packaging.

But our work isn't done. Here in the U.S., APP is pushing its “Paseo” brand tissue products onto store shelves across the country. To do so, they are counting on people in the dark about the dirty secret behind their tissue products. But you can help us change that.

Take action and tell major U.S. retailers like Walmart and Kmart: “don’t sell rainforest destruction – don’t sell Paseo tissue products!”

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Tell Kmart: Don't Sell Rainforest Destruction

Our campaign to get US retailers to pull Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) consumer tissue products from its shelves is working.

Kroger -- the largest seller of APP products in the US -- recently put out a public statement saying it will stop sourcing from APP. This huge victory came after 50,000 activists like you contacted the company and told them to stop selling rainforest destruction in the form of throw-away tissue products.

But this isn’t over. There are still major retailers selling APP products in this country -- fueling deforestation in the Indonesia rainforest and threatening the land that the 400 remaining Sumatran tigers call home.

And of those, Kmart is one of the biggest offenders. That is why we are turning up the heat on the giant retailer and asking Kmart to follow Kroger’s lead.

Momentum is on our side. Now is the perfect time to keep the pressure up. That is why it is so important that you take a minute now to tell Kmart that there shouldn’t be any space for rainforest-destroying toilet paper on its store shelves.

Take action now by telling Kmart: “Don’t sell rainforest destruction – don’t sell Paseo tissue products!

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Greenpeace

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Rainforest Action Network | Challenge Corporate Personhood | Truth Machines

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RAN - Environmentalism with teeth

Rainforest Action Network campaigns for the forests, their inhabitants and the natural systems that sustain life by transforming the global marketplace through education, grassroots organizing and non-violent direct action.

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Rainforest Action Network | Environmentalism with teeth.

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Challenge Corporate Personhood

The two-year anniversary of the controversial Citizens United vs. FEC ruling is rapidly approaching. This shocking decision by the U.S. Supreme Court on January 21, 2010 allows corporations unlimited spending on campaign elections—as a constitutional right to free speech under the First Amendment. Wait a minute. Corporations have constitutional rights? But corporations aren’t people. Exactly.

That’s why RAN and thousands of allies are standing up and fighting back. Join us for two mass days of action on January 20 and 21 to call for an end to “corporate personhood.” We will be organizing actions at Occupy Wall Street West in San Francisco, Bank of America headquarters in Charlotte, and Cargill’s base of operations in the Twin Cities. Stand by our side. En masse, we can show corporations and the government that democracy is by the people, for the people.

The anniversary of the Citizens United ruling this January 21 promises to be monumental. For all of us working day and night on behalf of people and the environment, January 21, 2012 marks two years to the day since the advent of one of the most egregious ‘rules of the game’ weighting our economy and democracy in favor of big money and against community health and a stable climate. And it comes at a moment when Americans have been primed to think more broadly and deeply about the economy, inequality, and the need for change. READ MORE

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Challenge Corporate Personhood | Rainforest Action Network

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Bank of America ATMs In San Francisco Turned Into Truth Machines!

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Bank of America ATMs Turned Into Truth Machines

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Bank of America ATM menu:

Select your transaction -

Invest in Coal-fired Power Plants
Foreclose on America's Homes
Bankroll Climate Change
Fund Executive Bonuses

Stop doing business with Bank of America until they start behaving responsibly.

: RAN activists took to the streets of San Francisco and turned every single one of Bank of America's Automated Teller Machines in the city into Automated Truth Machines. Using special non-adhesive stickers that were designed to look exactly like BoA's ATM interface, the activists gave the bank's customers a menu of what their money is being used for, including investment in coal-fired power plants, foreclosure on America's homes, bankrolling climate change, and paying out fat executive bonuses.

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Flickr: Rainforest Action Network's Photostream

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