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Greenpeace asks investors to check their mutual funds
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Greenpeace Canada has launched a new campaign focused on mutual funds investing in shares of Interfor and West Fraser, two companies continuing to log in the old growth forests of British Columbia. While most major forestry companies are honouring a moratorium on logging the Great Bear Rain Forest – containing 1,000-year-old cedar trees as well as the rare Kermode Bear -- . International Forest Products and West Fraser Timber stopped participating in negotiations over the rain forest with Greenpeace last July. As a result, Greenpeace is asking investors to pressure mutual funds with holdings in these companies to enter into dialogue with the companies, or to divest. Greenpeace is buying newspaper ad space to inform investors of the campaign. Greenpeace has praised the actions of Ethical Funds Inc., which entered into dialogue with West Fraser Timber. When it became apparent that the company would ignore the moratorium, Ethical Funds divested. "We've been in dialogue with mutual fund companies for a number of months now — since last January or February,” says Greenpeace forest campaigner Gavin Edwards. “Some were more open to some of the arguments we were presenting around specific logging companies in B.C. and some were a lot less willing to even discuss the problems." "If the logging companies are either ignoring the message from mutual funds or are not getting a strong enough message then I think it's up to us and consumers, generally, to demand that mutual funds don't invest in specific logging companies in British Columbia." For more information, visit www.fundingdestruction.org.
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