Friends of Clayoquot Sound: Logging: Markets Campaigns

Markets Campaigns

Friends of Clayoquot Sound (FOCS) was one of the first organizations in the forest movement to turn to the marketplace to provoke positive change in logging practices. Spearheading the boycotts of the early 1990s, FOCS helped to pressure logging companies to curtail their profit-driven clearcutting of old growth forests by educating consumers and major corporate buyers of forest products. As a result, companies such as Scott Paper and Kimberly-Clark cancelled their purchasing contracts with MacMillan Bloedel, the major company clearcutting ancient forest in Clayoquot Sound at the time, and MacMillan Bloedel’s reputation in the marketplace nose-dived.

We continue to turn to the marketplace since corporations are more responsive to environmental concerns when the environmental problems they create are brought to the attention of individual and corporate consumers and therefore become linked to a company's profits. Nothing speaks louder to a company than its profit margin.

Markets Initiative: Transforming Canadian Publishing and Saving Ancient Forests

Markets Initiative began in 1999 as a coalition project of four environmental groups – FOCS, Greenpeace Canada, Sierra Club BC and Forest Action Network. Markets Initiative has since evolved into a highly successful independent organization and has brought about a major shift in Canadian book, magazine and newspaper publishing. By educating publishers and printers to prefer paper made from non-virgin fibres, Markets Initiative has spurred the development of new types of commercial stock paper made from 100% post-consumer recycled fibre, and has helped nurture the emergence of a new market in Canada for paper that does not originate from endangered ancient forests.

A major achievement of the work of Markets Initiative has been the publication in Canada of several Harry Potter titles on 100% ancient-forest-free paper. To date, over 600 Canadian publishers, publications and printers have made the commitment to shift their paper buying practices to choices that take pressure off the world’s ancient and endangered forests.

As a consumer, you can support them by looking for the Ancient Forest Friendly™ logo when you buy books, magazines and newspapers. It’s your assurance that our cultural legacy doesn’t come at the expense of our natural heritage.

For more information please see: www.marketsinitiative.org

Contact us!

Friends of Clayoquot Sound
PO Box 489, 331 Neill St., Tofino BC V0R 2Z0
Tel: 250-725-4218 Fax: 250-725-2527
Email: info@focs.ca