Dogwood Alliance

When the organization was started 12 years ago we set high goals, made ambitious plans, and set out to create real protection for Southern forests. 2008 showed that perseverance pays off! I wanted to share with you a few highlights from 2008, including the Packaging Campaign, the Southern Forests Roundtable, the Southern Forests Carbon Project, our progress with AbitibiBowater and the Office Supply Industry and the release of our report on the latest emerging threat to our forests - biofuels …

Packaging Campaign—

• Health and Beauty Companies
  • Major cosmetic and pharmaceutical companies have adopted or will soon announce policies that will push the demand for responsibly sourced fiber.
• Greening the Music Industry
  • Music industry giants have adopted policies increasing post-consumer recycled fiber content and sourcing from responsibly managed FSC certified forests.
• No Free Refills (for the forest) Fast Food Packaging Campaign
  • Targeting the big Fast Food Junkies the campaign has garnered fantastic public, media and corporate attention and focused that response on protecting the Southern Swampland forests of the mid-Atlantic coastal region.
  • We launched NoFreeRefills.org with cool Web 2.0 technologies to educate concerned people and activists that Southern forests are too important to be waste for packaging that is used once and thrown away.
  • The Packaging Man video game was an especially successful highlight bringing our message to an even broader audience. Here’s the premise: Paper company executives are gobbling up all the trees. Packaging Man must stop them! (Hint: If you were a child or teen of the ‘80s, the many hours you likely spent playing Pac Man have prepared you well for this challenge.) The video game was by people from all over the country! Play Packaging Man.
  • After sending hundreds of postcards and generating media about McDonald's paper packaging, we’ve come far with the company and look to announce our progress later this year.
  • In November we dropped off hundreds of postcards at the Wendy’s/Arby’s Headquarters in Columbus, OH, made hundreds of phone calls, and generated hundreds of billboard petitions. Make your own billboard here .

Southern Forests Roundtable—What?! New York City? That’s right, Southern forests took center stage in front of a Who’s Who of corporate responsibility leaders at the Southern Forest Roundtable held at Random House headquarters in NYC. People who represent millions of dollars worth of corporate buying power, including Staples, McDonald's, Starbucks, Johnson & Johnson, convened to hear about the treasure of Southern forests and to learn how to use their buying power to drive change in these beautiful forests that are so important to the health of this region and the planet.

The Roundtable showcased the effect our work has in creating demand for better paper choices and more responsible forestry practices in the South.

Southern Forest Carbon Project—A ground-breaking collaboration between Dogwood Alliance and office supply giant Staples, is designed to provide landowners with incentive to manage their forests sustainably through certification by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).

• There is a global recognition to protect forests as a key strategy to mitigating climate change. In addition to its many ecological and social benefits, healthy, Southern forests are a globally important buffer against climate change.
• We have convened a powerful group of industry, conservation, landowners and carbon market experts and will launch our pilot project in 2009.
• This cutting-edge initiative will result in a new market for Southern landowners—one that rewards good forest stewardship by bringing real dollars into the pockets of landowners that choose to protect and enhance important conservation values such as carbon sequestration.

AbitibiBowater—formerly Bowater, Inc., has taken leadership position on one of the most important issues in the South—an end to the conversion of native and natural forests to sterile pine plantations. Most exciting of all—16,000 acres of high conservation value were transferred to the state of Tennessee for conservation. Further, the study of forests of ecological and historical significance within the Gulf and Coves of Bowater ownership in Cumberland Plateau region was completed. New colonies of large-flower skullcap—a globally imperiled species—as well as other threatened plant species were found along with a prehistoric pictograph. We are using satellite imagery to monitor the company’s operations. Stay tuned for the latest report.

Office Supply—Alll of the major office supply retailers have environmental paper policies in place and our Green Grades report created competition between them to turn those policies into meaningful action for Southern forests. To see the Green Grades Report, click here .

Biofuels Report—“Don’t Log the Forest For the Fuel"

• Dogwood Alliance released a position paper on the potential environmental and economic impacts of the biofuel industry in the Southern US. Some key findings include:
  • Regions like the South, already known for their forest products are likely to dominate the market, increasing already unsustainable forest management practices.
  • Due to the vast amount of carbon released from Southern forest clearcuts, biofuel production could actually double the amount of greenhouse gas emissions.
  • To read the full report click here.

Thanks to everyone who helped out making phone calls, signing and collecting petitions, sending emails, generating media, and contributing time or dollars to protect Southern forests. Here's to an even more successful 2009.

2009 is going to be another exciting year for Dogwood Alliance and Southern forests.

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