Green Diamond Resource Company (previously known as Simpson Timber Company) owns over 400,000 acres of forested lands on the north coast of California in Humboldt and Del Norte Counties. These private lands surround Redwood National and State Parks, the Yurok Reservation, and the communities around Humboldt Bay, Trinidad, Klamath and Crescent City. Therefore, these lands are critical to the integrity of our natural landscapes, water supplies, fish and wildlife, and productive communities.
Green Diamond is now seeking to certify its forest lands through the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), a non-profit organization that sets standards for forestry practices in an attempt to balance environmental, social, and economic values. While this could be a promising development, many questions arise because of Green Diamond’s aggressive clearcut logging, their legacy of toxic pollution, their decades long history of antagonistic relationships with local communities and civil society organizations, and their corporate culture of greenwash, impunity, and lack of accountability.
FSC is using a third party company, Scientific Certification Systems (SCS), to conduct the audit of Green Diamond’s forest lands. This process is open to public input and there was a public meeting on June 11th at the Bayside Grange near Arcata. EPIC was there at this meeting, and the staff of our organization continues to believe that there is real opportunity in this certification process to bring about substantial changes in the manner in which Green Diamond (ex-Simpson Timber) treats public trust resources in our bioregion. We applaud the leadership at Green Diamond for endeavoring to enter into this process. Nevertheless, due to the dynamics at this meeting and concerns that FSC is not registering nor taking seriously the comments of the public, it has been become clear to us that there is a very real risk that the Forest Stewardship Council could provide certification to Green Diamond without bringing about the necessary transformation of their operations on the ground, and without seriously addressing the corporate culture that pays lip service to social and economic concerns while continuing to hide the impacts on our local landscapes and human communities that have resulted from decades of abuse by this privately held Seattle based company.
This is a critical moment in the work being done to establish an ecologically viable and socially responsible forest products industry on the North Coast of California. Take action today, and tell the FSC — Don’t Greenwash Green Diamond!
Read the Public Notification Letter about this process and for more information about how to submit your own comments or click here and take action today!