Tag Archives: Congress

Lumber Liquidators is in hot water, reportedly facing criminal charges from the U.S. Department of Justice — and for good reason. The nation’s leading hardwood floor retailer has allegedly imported illegally harvested wood from critical habitats, including the Russian Far East.

These forests are home to the world’s last remaining Siberian Tigers. With only around 450 of these majestic tigers remaining, we can do more to respond to illegal logging across the globe.

The Lacey Act, passed in 1900 to combat the illegal wildlife trade, was strengthened to fight illegal logging in 2008 — and it’s these forests’ best defense. If adequately enforced, the law would ensure that wood products have been sourced legally and violators like Lumber Liquidators would face fines or jail time.

Let’s not let Lumber Liquidators off the hook. Tell President Obama and his agency heads to fully enforce the Lacey Act!

Last year, thousands of RAN activists expressed outrage at Lumber Liquidator’s ties to illegal logging and destruction of the last habitat of the Siberian Tiger. Now, our friends at Sierra Club are taking the campaign one step further – by demanding criminal charges be pursued against Lumber Liquidators. We fully support this campaign and wanted to ask you to help out as well. See Sierra Club’s message below for details on how you can help.

Christy Tennery-Spalding, Rainforest Action Network

Taking criminal action against Lumber Liquidators sends a strong message that corporations will be punished for profiting from the illegal destruction of critical habitat.

With the Lacey Act, the U.S. can lead the world in combatting illegal logging. Yet, this powerful law can only be successful if enforcement is taken seriously and corporations are put on notice that violations will not be tolerated.

Protect the world’s ancient forests! Ask President Obama and his agency heads to continue holding Lacey Act violators like Lumber Liquidators accountable.

Thanks for all you do for the environment.

Sincerely,

Jesse Prentice-Dunn

Sierra Club

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TAKE ACTION: Ask the Pope to protect the Ecuadorian Amazon

09/26/2015 Nativegrl77

Pope Francis:
Call on Ecuador to Protect the Amazon
and its Peoples!

“For human beings…to destroy the biological diversity of God’s creation; for human beings to degrade the integrity of the earth by causing changes in its climate, by stripping the earth of its natural forests or destroying its wetlands; for human beings to contaminate the earth’s waters, its land, its air, and its life – these are sins.”
– Pope Francis,
Laudato Si, On the Care of Our Common HomeTAKE ACTION

On July 5th, Pope Francis, who has called deforestation a “sin,” will visit Ecuador, the country with the highest deforestation rate in South America. A major driver of Ecuador’s deforestation is state oil company Petroamazonas, which is leading a massive expansion of the Amazonian oil frontier.

Most disturbingly, Petroamazonas is attempting to drill in Block 31 and ITT – the most fragile part of Yasuni National Park and home to Ecuador’s last indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation. The Ecuadorian constitution qualifies any operations there as “ethnocide” because such activity would threaten the very existence of those isolated communities. This behavior echoes Pope Francis’ warning in his encyclical that “environmental exploitation and degradation” can lead to “the disappearance of a culture,” which “can be just as serious, or even more serious than the disappearance of a species of plant or animal.”As His Holiness prepares to meet with Ecuador’s devout Catholic president Rafael Correa, let’s ask him to urge President Correa and Petroamazonas not to drill Yasuní National Park. We also ask him to meet with theKichwa ofSarayaku, the Amazonian community who wrote to him in May which has successfully protected its territory fromthe incursion of oil companies for decades.For the Amazon,

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The Navy limits sonar testing for the first time … ever

09/24/2015 Nativegrl77

Melon-headed whales like these on the west side of Hawai‘i Island will now be protected from dangerous mid-frequency sonar training and testing. (Daniel L. Webster/Cascadia Research Collective)