PRESS RELEASE

Protests Push OfficeMax to Keep Promise on Indigenous Rights

For Immediate Release:

January 30, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO – Activists with Rainforest Action Network (RAN) orchestrated a National Day of Action today to demand that OfficeMax honor its commitment to help resolve an ongoing conflict over Indigenous rights in Canada’s Whiskey Jack Forest. Hundreds of activists participated, demonstrating at OfficeMax stores in San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Atlanta and other cities across the country.

OfficeMax purchases paper made from wood pulp obtained through clear-cut logging in the Whiskey Jack Forest of northwestern Ontario. The Grassy Narrows First Nation, one of more than 600 Indigenous communities located within Canada’s vast Boreal forest, claims a region including the Whiskey Jack as its traditional territory and has long objected to clear-cut logging there. The Canadian constitution allows First Nations to safeguard their traditional territories for customary uses such as hunting, trapping and fishing. In January 2007, the Grassy Narrows community called for a moratorium on all industrial activity occurring on its traditional territory without its free, prior and informed consent.

“We’re asking OfficeMax to keep its promise to reduce the social and environmental costs of its paper products.” said Brant Olson, director of RAN’s Old Growth Campaign. “American consumers don’t want copy paper made from clear-cutting forests at the expense of Indigenous communities and the environment.”

Facing criticism over the impacts of its paper sourcing in Grassy Narrows and elsewhere, OfficeMax announced a new paper procurement policy in February 2007. The announcement stated that “OfficeMax will continue to urge its suppliers to resolve these matters through their supply chains.” One year later, however, clear-cut logging opposed by Grassy Narrows continues to supply OfficeMax with copy paper.

Holding signs calling on OfficeMax to “keep its promise” and “support Indigenous rights,” activists demanded that OfficeMax publicly support Grassy Narrows’ moratorium. Volunteers also wore caribou antlers because the woodland caribou that live in and around the Whiskey Jack Forest are a threatened species, heavily affected by the habitat fragmentation caused by clear-cut logging.