Randall Hayes, President, Rainforest Action Network (RAN)
Environmental Roundtable and Kaleidoscope Television Program, Santa Monica, November 18, 1997
Host Peter Kreitler: The state of the world's rainforests is in a crisis; we are losing 30 acres per minute, or one football field per second. They used to cover 14% and now are down to 6% of the land area of the planet. Can this destruction be stopped and recovered? Is there hope?
Randall Hayes: It is desperate situation, but there are ways to move forward. We need an environmental U-turn away from our current patterns. We need a strong climate change convention to combat global warming. We are turning the blue sky into a toxic furnace. The European governments are calling for mandatory limits to drop emissions back to 1950 levels.
One of the biggest problems is the mining of emeralds and gold from rainforest areas. Brazil tried to halt the gold mining and destruction of the Yanomami tribe by bombing the air fields used by the prospectors. Rainforests absorb carbon dioxide and thus slow global warming, but they also reduce reflectivity and absorb more sunlight, which increases warming.
We need to be radicals in the original Latin sense of is getting to the root of the problem. It seems that big business has control over the government, and we need to get government back in the hands of the people. Government should be of, by and for the people and all life on earth, instead of just benefiting the lumber and oil companies. The power of the people needs to be expressed.
Peter Kreitler: Perhaps we need to speak truth to power in love.
Randall Hayes: We need tough love in some cases to halt the destruction of the planet. Mitsubishi is the world's largest corporation, composed of 160 companies. It is deforesting Siberia, British Columbia, South America, and many parts of Asia. So far, only two of te companies have signed an environmental agreement. Mitsubishi Motors says they know they need eventually to get out of engines that run on fossil-fuels. They say they will move to recycled paper. They are making a paradigm shift to ecological responsibility. To stop a stampede you need to alter the course of the lead steer. Mitsubishi is the leading corporation in the world, and it can have an effect on other companies. We believe it will be economically profitable to be ecologically responsible.
The US is down to 4% of its original ancient forests. Siberia contains 22% of the world's remaining forests. We have shown there are other economic alternatives to destroying the rainforests.
Question from Wendy, CalPIRGs: How do we avoid the danger of co-optation by the companies?
Hayes: Yes, green washing is a danger, some companies try to dupe the public into thinking that doing one thing for the environment is all they need to do. We have told Mitsubishi that now we are beginning the serious public campaign, perhaps involving boycotts. This is necessary because the governments are not being the proper watchdog of the public interests.
Kreitler: Are there any threats to your life?
Hayes: There is very little danger to my life compared to that of the tribal leaders. We know about the death of rubber tapper Chico Mendez. We have had to support other rubber tappers with bulletproof vests. One tribe of 500 people is committed to collective suicide if the oil company comes onto their land.
Question from Robert Kinslow: I am interested in the continuum approach. The rain forests are the lungs of the planet. Like a band of fish that move in unison, as the many social groups develop similar core values, we are moving more in unison with each other.
Hayes: In Hawaii, the government was proposing construction of a power plant in the middle of one of the last ancient forests. So we formed local RAN groups, and 150 native Hawaiians were arrested blocking the construction. The result was the power plant was never built and the rainforest survives.
Kreitler: Like the native people of Brazil who are willing to die for their land, all of us could take this cause to our hearts, and do all we can to care for the planet.
Hayes: Martin Luther King said an injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere. Local people should fight toxic dumps in their neighborhood. We can have an ecologically sustainable society in our lifetime, and we are building that step by step. Using recycled paper is good, but it is still using trees. Let's use tree-free paper, from bamboo, or 100% post-consumer paper.
Question: Some see the major cause environmental destruction as high rates of unemployment. Like Sweden which has strong labor unions, we could stop the clear cutting if we provided security for the lumber workers who get laid off.
Hayes: Another problem is the World Bank finances the movement of people into the forests. Instead, we need to do reverse migration to get people out of the forests.
Hayes: Paul Hawkens says some forests in Minnesota have been logged for hundreds of years and yet maintain their biodiversity, it just costs a little more. A big question is if we can ecologize capitalism. Hawkens' book, Ecology of Commerce, calls for natural capitalism, meaning the cost to the earth should be reflected in the cost of the products. Subsidies for tree-free paper can be investments for the future.
Question from Tim Carmichael: What about tree farms?
Hayes: A tree farm that uses pesticides and slave labor is still a problem. We need to bring back the land using a tree farm that is a ecological restoration zone. When a company wanted to plant a fast-growing Eucalyptus tree farm in New Zealand, the native tribe said you can plant 1/3 of the land with only Eucalyptus, 1/3 with a mixture of Eucalyptus and more slow-growing native species, and 1/3 with only native species. Then after you harvest the first third, replant it with the mixture. After you harvest the middle third, replant it in only native species. In this way you can gradually establish a sustainable and economically productive forest in only native species.
In the US, 99% of the old growth is gone, only 1% remains. We don't want to certify logging out of any ancient forests.
Kreitler: What is the biggest single unnecessary consumption?
Hayes: The single biggest rainforest commodity is plywood that goes to Japan to make forms for cement foundations and then is thrown away. There is also a lot of beef grown on cleared rainforest land. Mahogany is the most endangered tree. Now, most of it is b