Environmental action club
opposes contract
By Heather Mangold
City
Editor
Wood producing companies are forever receiving
accusations from environmental organizations, some of which may be unconstituted,
according to experts.
Members of the Purdue Environmental Action club
will join environmentalists from throughout the state today in Indianapolis
to oppose Indiana's contract with one of the largest wood producing
companies in the nation.
At the end of this year, the Indiana department
of administration will review their contract with Boise Cascade Corporation,
a contract that supplies Indiana state institutions with office supplies
and paper products. The environmental action club, along with organizations
such as the American Lands Alliance and environmental groups from other
universities, suggests that the corporation is the largest destroyer
of old growth forests in America.
"Boise Cascade is the dinosaur of the logging industry
which still uses logging practices such as clear cutting in old growth
forests," said Joshua Martin of the American Lands Alliance. "The American
people have strongly said that we want to have these forests preserved."
An old growth forest can be defined as one that
has never been cut or developed through human development and has reached
its final stages of species production.
"In order to protect these areas we are trying
to get states like Indiana to be responsible in those choices and go
with good companies," said Martin.
But the company under scrutiny is a good one, says
one corporation representative.
"(Environmental groups) make broad accusations
which are at very best misleading and at very worst lies," said Mike
Moser, a spokesperson for Boise Cascade.
Moser denied the accusation that the corporation
is one of the largest destroyers of old growth forests in the country.
"We do extremely little old growth harvesting,"
he said.
Moser said the only time the corporation did harvest
in old growth forests was under contract with the U.S. forest service
in an effort to improve the overall health of the forest. He said the
largest portion of land from which the company harvests wood for its
product, however, is on privately owned land.
George Parker, a professor in the School of Agriculture,
said in some cases, environmental groups use accusations such as this
to achieve recognition.
"I don't know that they are necessarily misinformed,
but they are taking a narrow view," said Parker.
In fact, said Parker, there are more forests in
the United States today than there were 100 years ago.
"In Indiana, at the turn of the century, they think
we had two million acres of forest and today they think we have 4.7
million acres," he said.
Parker said that most companies today are practicing
renewable forestry, planting their land or naturally regenerating it
for their company.
"They are cutting forests in a way that sustains
them in the long haul," said Parker.
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