RAN Launches Campaign Against Use of Lumber in Home Building

The San Francisco-based Rainforest Action Network (RAN), whose activist tactics are scorned by some in the environmental community but who played a pivotal role in convincing Home Depot to embrace forest certification, has launched a campaign against the home building industry’s use of lumber. RAN argues that home builders use 72% of the nation’s lumber, with a portion of it coming from old-growth forests in British Columbia. “Every day thousands of acres of endangered forests—from British Columbia to the Amazon, California to Alaska, and Siberia to Malaysia—are routinely clearcut and used in home construction,” according to an Internet-distributed bulletin. RAN calling for an “International Day of Action” on April 1 against two of the nation’s largest home builders: Centex Homes and Kaufman & Broad. Protests are planned at open house events held that Saturday around the country.