Next Stop, Home Depot

By Margot Hornblower

Most American consumers know better than to buy ivory, or ashtrays made from gorilla paws, or tuna caught in nets that are not "dolphin free." But when they stop by Kinko's for stationery or Home Depot for plywood, will they ask themselves, "Is this old-growth free?"

This week, in 70 cities from Anchorage, Alaska, to Athens, Ga., environmentalists plan to stage a "Day of Action" by picketing Home Depot, the mammoth building-supply chain (sales last year: $24 billion). Customers will be offered "rain forest tours" through the store, spotlighting products made with trees from pristine, old-growth forests around the world: dowels and tool handles of ramin wood from Southeast Asia, doors of Amazon mahogany, cedar shingles and Douglas fir lumber from the temperate rain forests of North America, lauan plywood from the Philippines and Indonesia.

The protests are the opening salvo in what promises to be a hardball campaign to force the Atlanta-based chain to stop selling products made from old-growth wood. The environmentalists threaten to follow up with newspaper ads, frequent pickets and civil disobedience at selected stores around the U.S.--unless the company agrees. "Home Depot is the biggest old-growth retailer in the world," says Randall Hayes, president of the Rainforest Action Network (RAN), a leader of the campaign. "Stopping them from selling old growth is the most important thing we can do to save these ancient cathedral forests and these 2,000-year-old trees." Only 22% of the world's old-growth forests remain intact, mostly in Brazil, Canada and Russia.

Persuading Home Depot would provide critical mass for a campaign that has been building momentum for more than a year. A score of major U.S. companies have agreed to limit or halt their use of old-growth products under pressure from the San Francisco-based RAN, the Washington-based American Lands Alliance and other environmental groups. Mitsubishi Motors and Mitsubishi Electric agreed last February to use only tree-free products by 2002. Kimberly-Clark scaled back its use of rain forest-wood fiber after the organization published ads depicting ancient forests over the headline OLDEST LIVING THINGS ON EARTH OR TOMORROW'S TOILET PAPER? 3M signed on after RAN set up an 800 number for consumers to complain. Nike, Levi Strauss and Andersen Corp. (the largest U.S. window manufacturer) agreed without hesitation, and Kinko's is even marketing its eco-friendliness with a line of tree-free paper made from bananas.

In another recent victory, an environmental coalition forced MacMillan Bloedel, Canada's largest lumber company, to stop clear-cutting and to stay out of pristine coastal rain forests. The tactic that worked? Getting MacBloe's big customers, such as Pacific Bell (whose phone books were made partly with old-growth wood), to ratchet up the pressure.

Home Depot is the biggest target yet for RAN, which has a staff of 25 and a budget of $2 million. But Suzanne Apple, Home Depot's community-affairs director, says the activists are expecting too much, too fast. "We are committed to the environment," she says. "We have been encouraging our vendors to tell us the source of their lumber. But we have 5,000 suppliers and over 50,000 products. It doesn't happen overnight." Surely not. But if it happens at all, asserts the combative Hayes, it will be because Home Depot and other companies get "smacked on the head with a 2-by-4."

--By Margot Hornblower