[Also Posted to misc.activism.progressive (by Somebody Else)]
WEYERHAEUSER: THE TREE WHACKERS
by George Draffen
[Published in the October 1992 issue of Multinational Monitor]
FOR OVER A HUNDRED YEARS the Weyerhaeuser family name has been
synonymous with timber sales. In its perpetual search for new
and cheap sources of wood, the company has plotted a course from
the former forests of the Midwest, across the Pacific Northwest
and into Canada, through the southern United States, and finally
beyond the shores of North America into Southeast Asia and Latin
America. Along its journey, Weyerhaeuser has left a path of
ecological destruction, environmental violations and depressed
economies. Early in his career, Frederick Weyerhaeuser, the
corporation's founding father, earned his reputation as the
classic "cut-and-run" timberman. Over the years, the company
has refined but not fundamentally departed from Frederick
Weyerhaeuser's exploitative strategy, while spending millions
torevamp its corporate image.
Weyerhaeuser has come to be known as one of the world's
shrewdest timber companies, having developed sophisticated
public relations campaigns -- including a television advertising
campaign to gain recognition as "the tree-growing company" -- to
allay public concerns over the ecological impacts of the
company's patented clear-cutting techniques.
But environmentalists familiar with the company's record
say its actions do not match its green rhetoric. Mark
Floegel of Greenpeace International's pulp and paper campaign
says, "Weyerhaeuser is like the rest of the industry. It's
just somewhat more sophisticated at painting itself as
environmentally sound." Robert Rubovits, research associate
at the Council on Economic Priorities (CEP) notes that, "like
a lot of large companies in the last few years, Weyerhaeuser
has jumped on the environmental bandwagon, touting the fact
that it set up tree farms and has supported other environmental
programs. That tends to gloss over the company's record with
a big green brush."
Weyerhaeuser is the world's largest private owner of timber
land, the largest producer of lumber and a leader in the
production of cardboard, packaging and disposable diapers. The
company currently has timber operations or offices in 44 U.S.
states, owns six million acres of forest land in the U.S. South
and Northwest and has a long-term license to 13 million acres in
the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Saskatchewan and
Alberta.
Can't see the forest company for the trees
Consistently ranked in the Forbes 100, Weyerhaeuser's tentacles
reach far and wide. Family members, and the families of
Weyerhaeuser partners, have owned and managed dozens of timber
companies, from Weyerhaeuser Timber (and other proudly-labeled
spinoffs), to the Potlatch Company and Boise Cascade. Forbes
magazine estimated in 1988 that the family was worth well over a
billion dollars.
Although it is a multinational actor in both its exploitation
of resources and its sales, the U.S.-based Weyerhaeuser has been
careful to distance itself from its international operations.
According to Mike Walters, Weyerhaeuser's director of external
affairs, the company has "no manufacturing operations in any
foreign countries." Walters adds, "This has pretty much always
been the case."
A close look at the international timber industry, however,
reveals a series of international corporations formerly owned by
Weyerhaeuser or run by former Weyerhaeuser employees that have
as their sole purpose the supply of wood to the company, as well
as Weyerhaeuser affiliates in Canada, Germany, Belgium, Italy,
France, Greece, Spain, England, Guatemala, Venezuela, South
Africa, Hong Kong, Russia, Japan, China, the Philippines,
Malaysia and Indonesia.
Environmentalists charge the company is a major importer of
tropical hard woods. Walters denies the claim, stating, "We
don't harvest tropical hardwoods, nor do we buy trees that
someone else has harvested." The San Francisco-based Rainforest
Action Network (RAN), however, has called for a boycott of
Weyerhaeuser because of the company's alleged hardwood timber
trading. Pamela Wellner, tropical timber campaign coordinator
for RAN, says, "After the boycott began, the company's
Indonesian operations were sold to Chesapeake Hardwoods.
Weyerhaeuser remains a buyer through that company, but now we
are unable to get a clear idea of the volume it imports."
It is by no means accidental that Weyerhaeuser's holdings are
not easily traceable to the parent company. The corporation has
managed to separate itself from its international subsidiaries
through a series of carefully planned divestments. According to
Wellner, "there's no way to get the full scope of Weyerhaeuser's
involvement in other countries, whether it's operations, use of
products or imports. The company has become expert in hiding
its trail."
Chesapeake Hardwood in Indonesia is an example of a Weyer-
haeuser front corporation. It was named for a Weyerhaeuser
plant in Chesapeake, Virginia which produces wall paneling
that has tropical hardwood as its main material. In 1989,
Chesapeake was "sold" to a newly-formed affiliate of the
Indonesian Kalimanis group. Weyerhaeuser managers remain
at the helm, and Weyerhaeuser remains a major customer and
distributor for the new company.
Other major Weyerhaeuser subsidiaries in Southeast Asia and the
Pacific include the Philippines-based Capricorn Corporation;
Kennedy Bay Timber, Pacific Hardwoods and Silam Forest Products
in Malaysia; and Weyerhaeuser Far East Ltd., based in Hong Kong.
In the 1970s, before Weyerhaeuser switched to using subsidiaries
to supply timber, Weyerhaeuser's Indonesian division operated as
the International Timber Corporation of Indonesia. Pacific
Hardwoods, a member of the Timber Exporter's Association of
Malaysia and the Malaysian Plywood Manufacturers' Association,
was the fourth largest sawn timber exporter and the fifth
largest plywood exporter from Malaysia in 1991. In 1990,
Pacific was the second largest plywood exporter from Malaysia.
Growing an empire, then cutting it down
Timber provides over three-quarters of Weyerhaeuser's sales,
which doubled during the 1980s to more than $10 billion per year
in 1988 and 1989. Timber, however, is no longer Weyerhaeuser's
only product. The "tree-growing company" is now truly
diversified, and is parent company to at least 110 major
subsidiaries. These corporations range from the Energy Holding
Company to the Golden Triangle Railroad to the Bahamas-based de
Bes Insurance Company.
Through its diversification efforts, Weyerhaeuser has moved into
many timber-related industries. The company's Westwood Shipping
Company runs log, lumber and container cargo from the Pacific
Northwest to Japan and Korea. Weyerhaeuser Information Systems,
which began as the company's data processing department, now
sells professional services, information systems, disaster
recovery and manufacturing systems around the world. District
and municipal courts in Washington state, along with corporate
customers, use Weyerhaeuser-designed computer systems.
Weyerhaeuser Mortgage is one of the five largest mortgage-
banking companies in the United States, with over $11 billion
in loans in the late 1980s. A dozen Weyerhaeuser real estate
subsidiaries, operating in the District of Columbia, Washington,
California, Nevada and Florida, often building houses or office
parks on cut-over land, are among the top 10 home builders in
the United States, with sales over $1 billion in 1989.
During the real estate boom of the 1980s, Weyerhaeuser expanded
its cut-and-run strategy to include a "cut-and-pave" component.
Real estate developments, developed by subsidiaries such as the
Quadrant Corporation, became more valuable than lots replanted
with the company's genetically altered Douglas firs. "It's
ironic to see such a barrage of advertising from Weyerhaeuser
as the 'tree growing company' when it is at the forefront of
forest conversion," says Jeff Parsons, Washington state issues
coordinator for the National Audubon Society. "Taking timber
out of production is not very consistent with the image
Weyerhaeuser is trying to put forth."
Meridian Campus and Northwest Landing, two of the many
developments planned by Weyerhaeuser, sit at the southern end
of Puget Sound in Washington state. When completed, they will
include 9,300 houses and apartment units on 4,000 acres, and
have projected populations of 21,000 people. One of the
developments will engulf the 600 residents of the town of Du
Pont. Both will damage the Nisqually River Delta, one of the
last relatively intact estuaries in Puget Sound and the site
of a National Wildlife Refuge. Weyerhaeuser has also leased
344 acres of shoreline nearby for what could become the largest
sand and gravel-mining operation in the state.
Throughout the Pacific Northwest, Weyerhaeuser's developments
have come under fire at land-use hearings. Weyerhaeuser plans
to develop 2,000 residential units, retail and office parks
and two golf courses within sight of Snoqualmie Falls, a sacred
site for the Snoqualmie tribe. Although Snoqualmie Falls is
the first cultural site recommended by a Washington State panel
for inclusion in the National Register for Historic Places,
Weyerhaeuser is moving ahead with its development plans.
Political roots
Weyerhaeuser political action committees (PACs) donated at least
$319,342 between 1985 and 1990, mostly to Republican candidates.
This figure does not represent the full extent of Weyerhaeuser's
political contributions, since the National Forest Products
Association and the Northwest Pulp & Paper Association, in which
Weyerhaeuser holds memberships, also gave many thousands of
dollars.
Like many large corporations, Weyerhaeuser has worked to foster
close relations with politically powerful individuals. These
friends have served the company well during the last several
years of debate on timber cutting in old growth forests and the
enforcement of the Endangered Species Act.
George Weyerhaeuser, a Yale '49 classmate of George Bush,
visited the White House shortly before the Bush administration
removed private timber holdings from the list of areas required
to provide endangered species protection for the spotted owl.
Weyerhaeuser, whose company owns a third of a million acres that
could have been placed off-limits to timber cutting, denied his
visit had any influence over the decision.
The governor of Washington, Booth Gardner, is a multi-
millionaire heir to the Weyerhaeuser fortune. Gardner was
declared exempt from a 1972 Washington state voter initiative
requiring public officials to dis- close their financial assets;
the public disclosure commissioners, who are appointed by the
governor, have renewed the exemption each year. Weyerhaeuser
currently owns 1.5 million acres of forests in Washington state.
The company has also maintained close ties with the first
administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,
William Ruckleshaus, who has been a director and vice president
of Weyerhaeuser.
Cutting jobs
No company is more cynical in its exploitation of jobs-vs.-
the-environment sentiments than Weyerhaeuser. "It suits
Weyerhaeuser to jump in when emotions run high," says Audubon's
Parsons. "Meanwhile, the company is leading the way in
mechanization, exports and forest conversion." While loudly
blaming environmentalists for destroying the economic base of
rural forested communities, the company has worked diligently
to automate forest-cutting and lumber-processing operations in
an effort to eliminate those same jobs. Simultaneously it has
stepped up its shipments of raw timber to countries such as
Japan, thus further reducing the need for mill workers in the
United States and Canada. The extent of Weyerhaeuser's exports
has caused the company to be banned from bidding for timber on
national forest land in Washington and many areas of Oregon.
About 6,000 Weyerhaeuser loggers and millworkers are unionized.
Following a bitter strike in 1986, Weyerhaeuser won concessions
equal to a four dollar per hour per worker cut in pay. Other
forest products companies followed Weyerhaeuser's lead and also
forced workers to accept cuts. Following these wage cuts,
Weyerhaeuser profits rose from $277 million in 1986 to $564
million in 1988.
During the past four years, as part of a corporate
restructuring, Weyerhaeuser has laid off more than 8,000
workers. "A tremendous amount of salaried people were let go,"
says Don Truax of the International Woodworkers Association.
"It was basically, 'If you're over fifty, you're out the door."'
The jobs Weyerhaeuser does provide can be extremely hazardous.
Logging kills five times more workers in Washington state than
heavy construction, the second most deadly occupation.
According to a 1991 Essential Information report, Weyerhaeuser
is among the worst abusers of Occupational Safety and Health
Association standards, ranking third in number of violations
per 10,000 employees from 1977 through 1990.
Cutting costs, denting profits
In an ironic twist, environmental and safety problems, often
the result of cost-cutting measures, are beginning to dent
Weyerhaeuser's profits. In 1991, Weyerhaeuser reported its
first loss since the 1930s Depression. It placed much of the
blame on plant closures, environmental dean-ups and severance
for laid-off workers. This year, in an effort to avoid
environmental liabilities, Weyerhaeuser is in the process of
suing Aetna and other insurance companies, claiming that its
insurance policies should cover the costs of environmental
cleanups at 42 Weyerhaeuser sites throughout the United States.
Weyerhaeuser spends millions of dollars on radio spots and
full-page newspaper advertisements extolling the benefits of
industrial, intensively managed "forest" operations, and the
virtues of "tree-growing." Not surprisingly, it fails to
mention the costs to communities and ecosystems once
clear-cutting comes to its logical end.
For more than 100 years, the forests of the United States,
Canada and, more recently, Southeast Asia and Latin America,
have absorbed the costs of the Weyerhaeuser cut-and-run program.
With less than 5 percent of U.S. old growth forest still
standing, and tropical forests around the world being rapidly
destroyed, it seems unlikely the family tradition can continue
much further into the future.
Clear-Cutting is Not Enough
A COUNCIL ON ECONOMIC PRIORITIES (CEP) report on Weyerhaeuser,
released in June 1992, documents environmental violations
in British Columbia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma,
Washington and Wisconsin, and lists 13 Superfund sites at which
Weyerhaeuser is a potentially responsible polluter. According
to Robert Rubovits, a CEP research associate, Weyerhaeuser is
most outstanding for its failure to comply with air and water
quality standards and its "consistent violations of permits for
emissions, standards and limitations." Weyerhaeuser's far-flung
enterprises have repeatedly brought it into conflict with the
law. y The Weyerhaeuser-owned pulp and paper mill at Kamloops
on the Thompson River in British Columbia is a hot spot for
dioxin, a by-product of chlorine bleaching of paper, and a
powerful carcinogen. Provincial medical officers have advised
against eating dioxin-contaminated fish caught downstream from
the mill, which are eaten primarily by local Shuswap people.
Barney Lukas, director of public affairs at Weyerhaeuser Canada,
says, "Weyerhaeuser can't say whether eating the fish does or
does not pose a risk. The health people have to determine
that." He points out that officials "never told the public
'don't eat the fish.' They only said to minimize servings to
once or twice a month."
In 1992, The B.C. Environment Ministry issued new
organochlorine pollution regulations, which Lukas says are
regrettable because they will cost the company "a fair amount
of expenditure on environmental adjustments that could be used
for AIDS research or relief to Somalia." Lukas says that there
is "no scientific body of evidence" to show that the reduced
organochlorine levels required by the new regulations are
necessary. He claims, "We don't know how" to conform to the
levels that have been required for 2001.
o Weyerhaeuser is a defendant in a $100 billion class action
suit alleging widespread poisoning of U.S. rivers and streams
with dioxin. The suit was filed by Texas residents against 30
paper companies and the American Paper Institute, on behalf of
"every person who has been exposed against their will and
against their knowledge."
o In April 1992, Weyerhaeuser's Merritt, British Columbia
operation was charged with violations of B.C.'s Waste
Management Act for illegally discharging and transporting
wastes. Fines related to the charges could total $3 million.
o In 1991, Weyerhaeuser was charged with violating North
Carolina state regulations by illegally removing pollution
control equipment from its New Bern pulp mill during
operation, releasing tons of ash. The company paid the state
a $926,000 fine.
o Between 1985 and October 1991, the Washington Department of
Ecology took 137 enforcement actions against the company for
violations of air and water quality standards. Weyerhaeuser
paid the state $814,600 in fines.
o Weyerhaeuser released 14.6 million pounds of toxic chemicals,
including sulfuric acid, chloroform, formaldehyde and chlorine
into the air and the water in 1989, the most recent year data
is available from the U.S. EPA's toxic release inventory.
In 1990, a Washington state Weyerhaeuser pulp mill emitted
more than eight million pounds of sulfuric acid into local
waterways.
George Draffen is a research librarian at the Task Force on
Multinational Corporations, a project of the Seattle-based
Institute on Trade Policy.
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