In 1999, after customers of forest products from around the world united to voice their concern over the fate of the Great Bear Rainforest, some B.C. logging companies agreed to a moratorium on logging in critical rainforest areas of the Great Bear Rainforest, and to reform forest practices elsewhere in the region. Recently, however, International Forest Products (Interfor) and West Fraser Timber, two of these original companies, turned their backs on this solution-building process and chose instead to continue to clearcut and destroy this precious irreplaceable natural environment.

So how does this relate to Canadian mutual funds?

Your Canadian mutual fund may well contain shares in either Intefor or West Fraser as is the case with a number of Canada’s major mutual fund companies.

Over the past few months, Greenpeace has been meeting with some of Canada’s most powerful financial institutions with mutual fund shares in either Interfor or West Fraser. Greenpeace’s goal has been to explain why an investment in either of these companies is not a sound economic investment for the future.

The underlying idea is that the right kind of business activity can yield social and environmental benefits (as is increasingly being demanded by the marketplace), in conjunction with broader economic benefits.

By destroying the Great Bear Rainforest, Interfor and West Fraser are blatantly ignoring the wishes of their customers around the world who want to safeguard this essential area of land. These companies are also ignoring a solution-building process that should be the cornerstone of a forward-thinking, progressive, and ultimately successful managerial environment.

Ethical considerations aside, the practices of these companies do not add up to a sound economic investment. On the economic argument alone, mutual fund companies should re-evaluate their investments in these “rogue” companies. When mutual fund companies refuse to do so, it is purchasers such as yourself, whose money comprises the substance of these share purchasers, who can lead the way.

How are the mutual fund companies responding?

The response has been mixed.

For Ethical Funds Inc., a company known for its strong stances on corporate responsibility, our message was well received. They immediately commenced efforts to pursuade West Fraser Timber to reconsider their plans to log the Great Bear Rainforest and when this failed, Ethical Funds 'did the right thing’ by divesting their $1.5million in shares in the company, stating that ‘the temperate rainforest of the north and central coasts are globally rare and require special protection’.

Meanwhile the response from Toronto Dominion Bank was of an entirely different nature. In a letter received earlier this year from TD (a bank which posted a profit of $2,981,000,000 in 1999 - the second largest profit of any Canadian company in 1999), they stated that their investment decisions ‘may preclude the rejection of investments on moral or ethical grounds’, thereby side-stepping the compelling economic reasons to re-evaluate the viability of these two logging companies in question.

In fact, TD Bank is one of the largest public investors in Interfor, which means that many Canadians who buy TD Asset Management mutual funds every year are unwittingly supporting the destruction of the Great Bear Rainforest in a very significant financial way.

How must we respond to mutual fund company disinterest?

Increasingly, more and more Canadians are interested in more than the bottom line. Many are seeking to secure personal economic futures but not at the expense of our shared natural environment.

Below is a list of mutual fund companies who currently have substantial investments in either Interfor and/or West Fraser. If you currently own shares in one or more of the mutual fund companies listed, you should know that your mutual fund company has helped either or both of these rogue logging companies finance their clearcuts with your money.

Greenpeace urges all Canadians to tell your mutual fund company, your financial advisors, and the logging companies involved that you cannot continue to support the destruction of the Great Bear Rainforest. There are, after all, in excess of 2000 viable mutual funds operating in Canada today; you should not, and do not, have to personally bankroll the destruction of our environment in order to take care of your financial security.

It is one thing for mutual fund companies to have financed this destruction when you remained unaware. But now that you do know, are you willing to continue to endorse the devastating clearcuts depicted in this article by personally signing your name to this image with your full knowledge and consent?

Is this really your vision for the future?

© McAllister/Greenpeace 2000
New logging road built into Clatse Lake in 2000.

The following funds have substantial holdings in Interfor and/or West Fraser Timber, companies that have to date shown little regard for the fate of the Great Bear Rainforest:

TD Bank (Interfor, West Fraser)
Royal Bank Mutual Funds (Interfor, West Fraser)
CI Mutual Funds (including BPI Mutual Funds) (Interfor)
Aim/Trimark Investment Management Inc. (West Fraser)
Fidelity Investment Canada (Interfor, West Fraser)
Investors Group. (Interfor, West Fraser)
ABC Fundamental Value (Interfor)

For more information about Canadian mutal fund companies contributing to the destruction of Canada's ancient forest and what you can do to help, visit: www.fundingdestruction.org

27 October 2000
GREENPEACE URGES CARDBOARD MANUFACTURERS TO "STOP BUYING ANCIENT FOREST DESTRUCTION”

SEE ALSO: press release archive