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Newsroom
Green Corps Lead Organizer Annie Sanders launches campaign to protect Southeastern swamplands
Suffolk News-Herald 2/7/2008 Dogwood Alliance seeks support
By Lauren WicksThe Dogwood Alliance is seeking help for the organization's latest push to protect southeastern swamplands from industry waste.Southern activists formed the Dogwood Alliance in 1996, according to the organization's Web site, in an effort to stop the expansion of chip mills. Chip mills are responsible for taking whole logs and grinding them into wood chips for paper companies and other assorted industries. Today, the alliance has expanded its mission. And, at a press conference yesterday held at Old Dominion University, the environmental group released its latest report on the impact of fast food and paper industries to southeastern swampland. According the report, excessive and wasteful paper productions from some of the top fast food restaurants (including Quiznos Subs and Pizza Hut) have led to the destruction of southern forests. In fact, by 1999 more than six million acres of southern forests were logged, largely for paper production. And, some native forests were transformed to "pine plantations" kept up through chemical fertilizers, toxic herbicides and insecticides. "Our forests should not be chopped down, chipped up and turned into paper packaging for fast food companies like KFC, Taco Bell and McDonalds," Annie Saunders, field organizer with Dogwood Alliance, told the crowd. Saunders said holding the press conference in Norfolk was important for two reasons. Primarily, the Hampton Roads region has "outstanding ecological value" and some of the "richest and most biodiverse" lands in the South. However, this region also has some of the largest paper producing plants in the Mid-Atlantic Coast. According to the report, "the South remains the largest producer of wood products in the world and is projected to remain the world leader in paper production for many years to come." Suffolk boasts one of the region's "richest and most biodiverse" swamplands in the Great Dismal Swamp. Yet, just a short drive away is International Paper's Franklin mill, one of the company's largest mills in the country. The mill's presence puts a giant threat on the Dismal Swamp via industrial logging. "Every time I visit the Great Dismal Swamp, I am reminded of how incredible this region once was and what it can be again," Laura Ray, an ODU grad student volunteering with the alliance, said in a statement. "Today we are coming together to call for greater protection of these amazing forests and an end to the long legacy of unsustainable forestry practices in the region, starting right here in Southeastern Virginia." So, the alliance joined with ODU students, as well as students from Tidewater Community College to start a petition. To date, the petition has more than 1,200 signatures asking large fast food restaurants to use recyclable products for packaging, as well as work with packaging plants that use sustainable logging - cutting down groups of trees within a swamp as opposed to clear cutting all trees - to obtain the timber. When Ray spoke to the crowd at ODU on Tuesday, she told the college students that as one of fast food's greatest consumer bases, they can demand better. "We are the consumer," she said, adding it is time to ask food companies "to make better decisions." Calls made to the corporate offices of Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and the International Paper Franklin mill were not returned by press time. For more information on Dogwood Alliance, or to see the report in its entirety, log onto www.dogwoodalliance.org. |
