COASTAL FORESTS, CORPORATE HONCHOS AND YOUR GARDEN

Howdy everyone! Sorry I’ve been so MIA on this blog lately. I guess it’s because a lot has been happening on the Save Our Cypress Campaign. Everything from national media coverage to corporate executive visits. Let me bring you up to speed.

On March 9, the Gulf Restoration Network teamed up with 10 student groups throughout the Gulf, 22 volunteer coordinators, and hundreds of individual activists to flood Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and Lowe’s with phone calls from concerned consumers. The message was simple: Stop selling cypress mulch.

Much of the cypress mulch that these three companies are peddling comes right from endangered forests on the Gulf Coast. These forests are important habitat for more endangered species than you can shake a stick at, and they are the best natural protection for another species I like- humans. Cypress confuses the force right out of storm surge as it comes rushing ashore, and they keep floodwaters from invading our living rooms. That’s a powerful tree, and a powerful message. If you haven’t gotten a chance to share it with the companies yet, you can head to this webpage to get all the info you need for calling.

If you called in towards the end of the big call-in day, the companies had heard the point loud and clear, and they’d come up with their own rebuttal. You probably heard a carefully constructed spiel about how much Wal-Mart, Home Depot, or Lowe’s cares about forests and sustainability. Supposedly, they’ve asked all their suppliers and have been assured that no mulch is coming from coastal Louisiana.

This just isn’t true. The Save Our Cypress Coalition has gathered lots of evidence showing that whole trees from vulnerable areas are being ground into mulch (you can see some of it at www.saveourcypress.org), and one of the main mulch suppliers of all three companies actually admitted to TIME Magazine that it cuts cypress in coastal Louisiana. Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Lowe’s are obviously not taking this threat seriously. They need to abandon this destructive product.

Yeah, you read that right. The cypress mulch controversy and the important of cypress forests were mentioned in TIME magazine last week (the March 19 issue)! That is great publicity for the cause, and our retail targets definitely cringed to see their names associated with this unsustainable practice in the national media.

On the wake of all this action, it was perfect timing for the March 16 Cypress Tour Day that the Save Our Cypress Coalition had organized for executives at Wal-Mart. The day went smoothly (we didn’t start brawling at any point), but no significant action was promised on their part (are you surprised??).

The day started early and the first stage was a swamp tour in the Atchafalaya Basin with the man who does it best, Dean Wilson, the Atchafalaya Basinkeeper. The best way to convince someone to save a beautiful place is to let them see it, right? Ahh, if only it were that easy.

On the way back from the swamp, we made a quick detour to the Louisiana Wood Products facility in Port Allen where whole trees are very publicly being ground up into mulch. So much for that “it’s only a by-product” argument we hear from the Louisiana Forestry Association. We also stopped at a Wal-Mart (per their request), where the cypress mulch was piled high.

From there, the group of Wal-Mart folks heard from leading coastal scientists, Ivor van Heerden with the LSU Hurricane Center and Paul Kemp with the Audubon Society, and Barry Kohl outlined the politics of cypress mulch for them. That included a detailed presentation of the evidence that cypress mulch is coming from whole trees that are sourced from vulnerable areas in Louisiana.

Wal-Mart also got a chance to let us know what they think of the whole thing. They agree that this is a serious problem and that endangered cypress should not be felled. But that’s about where the agreement stops. They say their suppliers promise that nothing is coming from endangered forests, but they’ve got no proof to back that up. We’ve got a ton of evidence showing that the mulch is indeed coming from where they claim it isn’t.

There was talk of certification programs, but many of those suggestions are bunk. And here’s my question- is this product really worth all that trouble?

For the final push, we teamed up with Southwings to give Wal-Mart folks an aerial view of some of the destruction and clear-cuts in southern Louisiana.

At the end of the day, Wal-Mart reps told us that they’d take all this info back to discuss it internally. Fair enough, but to my cynical ears, it just sounds like more delay tactics. We hope that they’ll come back with a proposal to drop the product so we can publicly thank them and celebrate a true move towards sustainability for the Gulf Coast. I’m not counting on it though, so we’re going to keep the pressure on until Wal-Mart takes real action on this issue.

With that in mind, we’re looking forward to the Arbor Day of Action. On April 27, concerned consumers and activists throughout the Gulf are going to celebrate Arbor Day by demonstrating outside Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Lowe’s stores and/or delivering letters to the managers of local branches. Check out this webpage to learn more and please sign up to get involved.

Dan Favre is the GRN's Campaign Organizer