Seattle Times

Weyerhaeuser "Built Green" houses not so, groups claim

April 13, 2006

By Hal Bernton Seattle Times staff reporter

Weyerhaeuser's credentials as a "green" homebuilder are being challenged by a Canadian tribe and an environmental group, which has tracked the wood used to build Puget Sound-area homes to disputed logging zones in Canada's northern forests.

The laminated-wood products are used by Quadrant Homes, a Weyerhaeuser subsidiary and major homebuilder that has touted environmentally friendly construction techniques that minimize wood waste, increase energy efficiency and rely on sustainable forestry. In a report released Wednesday, the environmental group Rainforest Action Network accuses Weyerhaeuser of misleading marketing.

"They say they have an environmentally friendly product; and that's a lie and we have to stop that," said Steve Fobister, deputy chief of the tribe, the Grassy Narrows Band Council, which has asked Weyerhaeuser to stop buying logs from the disputed harvest zone, the Whiskey Jack Forest in northwestern Ontario.

Weyerhaeuser stands by the marketing of Quadrant homes, which carry a three-star "Built Green" certification from the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties. They say that the logs, which they buy from another forest-products company, are logged in a sustainable way.

"It's not an endangered forest," said Paul Barnum, a Weyerhaeuser spokesman. "To say that the wood is somehow tainted simply because it's coming from this particular area of Canada is simply not true."

The Whiskey Jack forest covers more than 2,000 square miles of Ontario that the 1,200-member Grassy Narrows Band claims as ancestral lands. The area has been logged for years, but in 2002, when the logging approached the Grassy Narrows village, the tribe erected a blockade.

Since then, the company that logs that area, Abitibi-Consolidated, has agreed to stop logging within approximately 6 miles of the village and has tried to negotiate with the tribe about future logging.

But the tribe has sought management authority and reparations and has made other demands that would require an agreement with the Ontario provincial government, according to Denis LeClerc, Abitibi's director of corporate affairs.

The controversy highlights the difficulty Weyerhaeuser faces in trying to position the Federal Way-based corporation as an environmental leader while tapping into the northern  ̃ or boreal  ̃ forests, which have been the focus of international conservation efforts.

The boreal forests cover 35 percent of Canada's total land area and include some of the world's largest expanses of unlogged timber. They shelter wildlife, provide clean water and store carbon dioxide that, when released into the atmosphere, contributes to global warming.

The provincial governments now face new demands from conservation groups that seek to set aside more of the native forest and leave more trees behind in logged areas, and from tribes  ̃ known in Canada as First Nations  ̃ that want more control over the harvests, and the revenues they generate.

Weyerhaeuser and Abitibi both have been asked by the Rain Forest Action Network to adopt new logging standards that would be developed under the umbrella of the Forest Stewardship Council, a group that seeks to promote "responsible forest management" and encourages extensive consultations with tribal groups.

Several other Canadian forest companies have agreed to this certification, but Weyerhaeuser and Abitibi have opted to use other certification programs that the Rainforest Action Network contends don't offer enough forest protection.

The Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties endorses the forest-stewardship standards.

But there is no requirement that only those trees be used to get the "Built Green" label on homes, said Aaron Adelstein, who directs the Master Builders program that bestows it.

Hal Bernton: 206-464-2581 or hbernton@seattletimes.com