For years, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has engaged in a long-running pattern of misinformation about Canadian forestry practices. Their leadership and staff have ignored many of the First Nations, mayors, unions, and other representatives of boreal communities who expressed concerns that the group’s misleading campaigns were “denigrating the work of sustainable forestry in Canada, and causing grave harm to local economies, communities and the people who live and work in the boreal.” They have similarly ignored concerns from associations representing the vast majority of forestry employers in Quebec and Ontario.
In September of last year, NRDC solicited Resolute (and other QC and ON pulp producers) for input on a paper on “companies’ forestry activities in Canada’s boreal forest.” Their initial questionnaire contained errors, selective questions, and narrow interpretations of complex issues. That report has now been published and has turned out as slanted as we had expected, despite our good faith attempts to set the record straight.
Below, we have posted our response to NRDC’s initial overture where we outline our concerns with factual support. NRDC ignored our initial rebuttal and then followed up months later for more input on this report without acknowledging our substantive reply. We have also posted our subsequent responses to NRDC staff and leadership so that the public can evaluate the report in light of the information they apparently ignored.
While forest communities and ordinary people struggle to make ends meet, this deep-pocketed activist group is trying to dictate their lives from offices in New York and Washington, D.C. – without bothering to ensure accuracy, or consulting those who know the reality on the ground.
September 30, 2020
Courtenay Lewis
Canada Project International Program
Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.
1152 15th Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20005
Via email
Dear Ms. Lewis:
We received your form letter requesting input for the white paper you are preparing, but there are several outstanding issues that leave us with little confidence that your analysis will be sound or even composed in good faith. We must point out from the start that a review of your document indicates gross errors, and we do not understand how NRDC came up with these figures.
It has been nearly a year now since forest product companies, through the Forest Products Association of Canada, wrote to NRDC’s President and CEO, Gina McCarthy, requesting a dialogue over our concerns about NRDC’s troubling public claims and methods. That letter was entirely ignored but it’s worth revisiting this section:
“The lowest point was in November 2018 at the North American Caribou Workshop in Ottawa where NRDC staff addressed a mainly Canadian audience and made a number of statements that were unfortunate and completely false – including suggesting that we do not replant what we harvest in Canada. The remarks were not well received across Canadian industry, organized labour, and government, and reflected a gap in understanding…”
That NRDC staffer of course was you, and if there has been any attempt at NRDC to reflect on that egregious episode or explain, we are not aware of it. But, we hope you can see that insulting and alienating the Canadian forest sector and then asking for our help with your report seems both condescending and tone deaf.
Your posture is also at odds with NRDC’s own statement of values, in which your group promises engaged sensitivity toward the communities your work impacts, what you call “fostering the fundamental right of all people to have a voice in decisions that affect their environment.” In November of 2016, union leaders representing forestry workers wrote to NRDC’s then-CEO, Rhea Suh, pointing out the “grave harm” NRDC’s work was inflicting on “local economies, communities, and the people who live and work in the boreal.” A large group of mayors from municipalities throughout Quebec and Ontario also wrote to NRDC around the same time to plead with you about the misguided damage your team was causing their communities. But all those overtures too were disregarded and NRDC snubbed those requests for a visit and open meeting.
Instead, you have continued to issue misinformed reports about Canadian forest management from your offices in Washington, D.C., far removed in distance and in spirit from the people and communities that you are disparaging.
As you must know, Canada’s deforestation rate is virtually zero and that’s because our boreal forests are among the world’s best regulated and managed, with world-class and internationally recognized forest management policies. Obviously, that’s why NRDC has switched to using the artificial term “forest degradation,” which is generally rejected by people who work in this field. It’s arbitrary and essentially means whatever NRDC prefers.
Further, NRDC lacks any governmental authority in determining how Canada manages its forests. It is not an internationally recognized third-party certification standard for forest management. It is also not a well-respected scientific journal or academic institution with real expertise in the field. Instead, for years, NRDC has engaged in misleading environmental campaigns that maraud our industry with unsubstantiated claims while ignoring requests for dialogue from communities, workers, and other stakeholders and industry partners.
Since your letter requests a forthright exchange, there is some feedback we would like to ask of you too. Which NRDC donors have earmarked grants for your Canada Project? We are inclined to brief them on how their funding is being used to attack and misrepresent, in ways that contradict NRDC’s own explicit ethics guidelines. We are also puzzled that you seek our input here when we did not hear from you during production of the tissue reports you say you are building on. We learned of those reports through leaks and from news media you had apparently arranged, which makes it seem you are more concerned with publicity than accuracy. How do you justify that approach?
Sincerely,
Seth Kursman
Vice President, Corporate Communications, Sustainability and Government Affairs
cc:
Gina McCarthy, President and CEO, Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.
Anthony Swift, Director, Canada Project, International Program, Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.
February 10, 2021
Ms. Courtenay Lewis
Natural Resources Defense Council
1152 15th Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20005
Via email
Dear Ms. Lewis:
It has now been a full four months since our reply to you regarding this report, in which we included good-faith questions about your methodology and intent. At that time, you insisted on a tight deadline for our response, and yet we heard nothing from NRDC in the interval preceding this latest overture.
Allow me to recap that sequence of events, and NRDC’s stonewalling, for the benefit of observers who may not be aware. Local community and First Nations leaders have expressed grave concerns about NRDC’s campaigns, requesting feedback and a meeting. To our knowledge, those who have reached out have been entirely ignored. Union leaders also wrote to NRDC about the harms its falsehoods are inflicting on forestry workers and their families. They too received no answer. Associations representing the vast majority of forestry employers in Quebec and Ontario wrote similarly to the CEO of NRDC, and cited a “falsified” presentation by you, Ms. Lewis, to a stakeholder meeting in Ottawa as the “lowest point” in NRDC’s campaign to undermine Canadian forestry policy. Yet NRDC continues to evade explanation of this attempt to spread misinformation.
The sparse “methodology” you outline in your note provides no reliable answers either. You refer to “new analyses and estimates which, to our knowledge, are not publicly reported information.” That gives us no cause to conclude that this is anything but more guesswork and cherry-picked data compiled by persons unknown.
The documents you sent us to review make no mention that our practices are 100-percent forest management certified, or that these certifications are verified through rigorous third-party audits. Resolute is also among the largest holders of FSC certificates in North America, and all of our wood supply is certified under FSC Controlled Wood standards. Why were these central facts omitted? Biodiversity conservation, including species-at-risk, is a crucial part of both the stringent provincial and federal regulations that govern forest operations in Canada. The materials you sent also cite caribou data in a way that obscures Quebec’s and other provincial governments’ own long-established regulations protecting habitat – strictly-enforced rules with which we are in compliance.
Our company takes seriously the concerns and well-being of a range of diverse stakeholders and First Nations partners in the forestry community. We dialogue with them, incorporate their feedback in our management practices, and live and work in communities alongside them. That’s why it would be irresponsible for us to provide you with any assistance for a report that, based on your track record, will presumably ignore their concerns and disparage their livelihoods.
We urge you and NRDC leadership to reflect on the way you are conducting this project, perhaps during the “internal strategic considerations” you mention. You might start with a review of NRDC’s own ethics guidelines which, on the surface at least, require engagement and sensitivity that so far you haven’t sufficiently demonstrated.
In the meantime, we would still welcome your thoughts on any of these specifics we have raised—if not on deadline, then at your earliest convenience.
Sincerely,
Seth Kursman
Vice President, Corporate Communications, Sustainability and Government Affairs
cc:
Mitchell S. Bernard
Interim President and Chief Counsel
Natural Resources Defense Council
[email protected]
February 16, 2021
Andrew E. Wetzler
Chief Program Officer
Natural Resources Defense Council
1152 15th Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20005
Via email
Dear Mr. Wetzler:
I appreciate your prompt reply, but I am afraid your letter contains no substantive response to the points we raised in our letters of September 30, 2020, and February 9, 2021.
Simply put, your campaign misrepresents Canadian forestry practices, and communities – including many First Nations communities - in Ontario and Quebec as well as across Canada stand to suffer tangible harm as a result.
You have yet to acknowledge the specific and heartfelt appeal put to you by mayors, First Nations, unions and other trade groups — whether you would commit to visiting and dialoguing with those communities directly affected by your work. That does not mean flying to Ottawa for an occasional conference or lending an ear to hand-picked allies; it means visiting those towns in person and conversing with the people who live and work there. If you are “open to having discussions in good faith with any stakeholder who is interested,” then can the many who requested exactly that expect to see anyone from NRDC leadership or your foundation donors in their communities for public conversation anytime in the foreseeable future?
We reached out to your foundation donors because they share the moral responsibility for NRDC’s disregard for boreal communities. Their ethical guidelines, like yours, stress accountability to impacted local communities, so it is troubling they have delegated you to answer on their behalf.
It is also surprising that you claim to be unaware that FPAC had written to NRDC’s incoming CEO, Gina McCarthy. That letter was dated 12/3/19. Ms. McCarthy was named head of NRDC nearly a month earlier, on 11/5/19. Although her nominal starting date was 1/6/20, Ms. McCarthy was identified as NRDC CEO in many national news articles where she was interviewed about her new role and also in NRDC’s own promotional videos with her, apparently filmed in your own offices. We also reminded you of FPAC’s overture in our letter to Ms. Lewis on 9/30/20. That is why it is a little hard to accept this as an oversight instead of the persistent indifference we have cited repeatedly. So NRDC deployed Ms. McCarthy for publicity, fundraising, interviews, and collaboration with your staff — but you lacked a simple inbox for her to receive concerns from the actual people NRDC’s work was impacting?
I want to address some claims from your February 11, 2021 letter, which continue NRDC’s pattern of misinformation.
Multiple, contemporaneous records depict Ms. Lewis during the Ottawa conference making statements that were unfortunate and completely false – including suggesting that the forest products industry does not replant where we harvest in Canada. The audience, which included researchers and professionals from throughout the field of forest management, including NGOs and government, were visibly stunned and many reacted with laughter and incredulity. Your description that she simply “alluded to new evidence that suggests some [forest] areas are not recovering,” is just not what happened.
Our industry has also never argued that “tree planting” alone is an “excuse” for our practices. Canadian and provincial regulations, as well as international standards, require harvested areas be regenerated promptly. Tree planting occurs where natural regeneration is deemed insufficient. In the Canadian boreal, a significant portion of regeneration occurs naturally, progressively bringing back the same biodiversity that was present before the harvest. Your letter mentions that it takes forests “decades or longer to regain many of the same ecosystem values as the older forests they have replaced.” This process you reference is called forest stage succession, a dynamic that occurs as well in natural unmanaged forests. Meanwhile, a whole array of biodiversity benefits from the intermediate succession stages until the forests grow to maturity. The same thing happens after a forest fire - the main driver of forest renewal in the Canadian boreal. In fact, in some cases it takes much longer than in the managed forests since natural regeneration may not be as efficient. Can you please explain how your assertions square with these facts?
Much of the so-called “research” you link to in your reply comes from other questionable sources, such as fellow activist groups. It appears that your Canada Project coordinated certain activities with Greenpeace, ostensibly to carry forward that group's efforts to undermine boreal communities while it is embroiled in lawsuits over its defamations both in Canada and the United States.
We also asked Ms. Lewis if she would account for the fact that our practices are 100 percent forest management certified, ones verified through rigorous third-party audits. We asked if she knew that all our wood supply is certified under FSC Controlled Wood standards and that Resolute is among the largest holders of FSC forest management certification in all of North America. Yet neither you nor she have acknowledged those essential points.
This misinformation campaign cannot escape the reality that everyone uses and depends upon forest products in their daily lives. That is because wood is a plentiful and renewable resource. NRDC also proposes no viable alternatives to the use of wood products, or an explanation of what would happen if industry suddenly adopted its unrealistic demands. At Resolute, we believe in sustainability and our leadership has garnered North American and global recognition. We cannot achieve a sustainable future based on sensationalism and impractical demands.
Instead of addressing our substantive refutations or the concerns of boreal communities, you sent us a letter filled with platitudes and even boilerplate language lifted verbatim from your website and other communiques. The measure of whether NRDC and your financial backers are living up to your own promises of meaningful engagement is not up to you. Rather, it is for the Canadian public to decide.
You might also pause to reflect on how Canadians feel when wealthy foundations from beyond our borders bankroll American activists to lecture this country on the supposed shortcomings of our livelihoods and vocations. Do American NGO executives, working in the skyscrapers of Chicago and New York have some special wisdom that the people who actually devote their lives and careers within the boreal lack? Those stakeholders often ask us why NRDC is so intent on belittling Canada when other countries with large forest areas like Russia or the Scandinavian countries or the United States get relatively far less antagonism from you. If the answer is because the Canadian public owns approximately 94 percent of the forests and that with our conscientious policies and world-leading forest management practices we seem easier to manipulate, I think you will discover that is mistaken.
If, as we expect, your forthcoming report continues to traffic in distorted, maligning claims, then you can be sure we will join the stakeholders who live and work in those communities, including Indigenous people, in exposing the wrongful methods behind your work.
Sincerely,
Seth Kursman
Vice President, Corporate Communications, Sustainability and Government Affairs