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 eralding a major shift in the conscience of the US
construction in- dustry, two of the nation's largest home-builders
Centex Homes and Kaufman & Broad agreed to stop using wood
from endangered old growth forests in new home construction,
making them the first in the nation to do so.
 "These
agreements signal a trend that is irreversible," declared
Michael Brune, Old Growth Campaign director for Rainforest Action
Network (RAN). "A new ethic is emerging in which old growth
logging is no longer acceptable. The entire home construction
industry will be compelled to meet or beat this new market standard."
The revolutionary
promises by Centex and Kaufman & Broad made in letters dated
March 30 and March 29 respectively are the result of lengthy
negotiations and pressure from RAN, the Coastal Rainforest Coalition,
the Natural Resources Defense Council and other groups. Nationwide
protests against the two builders had been scheduled for April
1, but were called off after the companies, last-minute capitulations.
"Loggers
operating in endangered forests from British Columbia to the
Southeastern US and from Alaska to Indonesia will be forced to
transform their logging practices or they will find their markets
will quickly disappear," said Brune.
Centex Homes
pulls in some $5 billion in annual sales and boasts more than
400 developments nationwide, and Kaufman & Broad builds some
22,000 homes annually, making the two the largest volume home-builders
in the nation.
The US home-building
industry is the country's largest user of wood products, using
a whopping 72 percent of the lumber consumed nationwide to build
an estimated 1.2 million new homes annually. The average new
home in the United States uses well over 16,000 board-feet of
lumber.
Most homes
built today contain dozens of wood components that originate
in the world's last remaining old growth forests: cedar for tongue-and-groove
planking and shingles; Douglas fir for dimensional lumber; hemlock
for molding and trim; lauan/meranti for hollow-core doors, plywood
and paneling; mahogany for decorative exterior doors.
Old growth
forests are home to some of the planet's oldest and largest trees,
some as old as 4,000 years. These forests are also home to more
than 200 million indigenous people worldwide, provide habitat
for a majority of the Earth's plant and animal species, and are
critical to moderating the effects of climate change. In the
United States, less than 4 percent of our original ancient forests
are still standing, and worldwide logging and other causes of
deforestation have fragmented all but 20 percent.
The announcements
from Centex and Kaufman & Broad are the latest in a wave
of corporate commitments against the use of old growth wood.
RAN worked with a coalition of grass-roots groups, including
American Lands Alliance, Free-The-Planet, Student Environmental
Action Coalition, Sierra Student Coalition, Rainforest Relief,
Earth Culture, Action Resource Center, and dozens of other organizations
in a two-year campaign to convince retail giant Home Depot to
phase out endangered forest products. Following Home Depot's
compliance last August, other major retailers, from Ikea to Wickes
Lumber, have followed suit.
Building on
that success, RAN launched its campaign with home-builders Jan.
14 at the National Association of Homebuilders convention in
Dallas, Texas, where activists inflated a giant balloon shaped
like a chainsaw during opening remarks by Newt Gingrich, hung
two giant banners from convention center rafters, and projected
giant slide messages onto the sides of buildings.
"Just
as Home Depot shook the foundations of the home improvement industry
by vowing to eliminate products from endangered forests last
summer, this commitment by Centex and Kaufman & Broad brings
us one step closer to a permanent end for old growth logging,"
Brune said. 
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