Phony Forest Protection Scheme Tied to Massive Landslides

Greenwashing by the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) led to devastating landslides, according to a Sierra Club complaint filed against Weyerhaeuser and made public today. Prepared by the Washington Forest Law Center in Seattle, the complaint presents scientific evidence that SFI certified Weyerhaeuser’s logging on extremely steep and unstable mountainsides in SW Washington despite publicly available evidence that these mountainsides were prone to landslides.

The Sierra Club complaint, filed with SFI, comes only weeks after ForestEthics took action against SFI with the Federal Trade Commission and the Internal Revenue Service. The ForestEthics actions were covered by the New York Times on September 12. The group alleges that SFI is a timber industry-funded and -operated forest certification system whose nonprofit status violates IRS rules and whose advertising is deceptive and misleading according to FTC regulations.

“These disastrous landslides are bright red flags warning us of the harm that comes from SFI’s greenwashing,” said Aaron Sanger of ForestEthics. “By certifying these reckless practices, SFI promoted Weyerhaeuser’s private interests, but the people of Washington paid the price.”

Weyerhaeuser’s SFI-certified steep-slope logging triggered massive landslides, which in turn produced downstream log-jams and exacerbated flooding in a major regional rainstorm in December 2007.

In its FTC complaint filed in September, ForestEthics described how SFI, funded and managed primarily by large logging companies, gives its seal of approval to the logging practices of these same companies that harm people and wildlife, damage water resources and destroy forests.

The report submitted to the IRS focuses on SFI's funding and activities that serve the private interests of wood and paper companies that want a 'green' image. This is not a proper purpose for an organization with the same nonprofit status that the IRS gives to public charities.