Weyerhaeuser

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Weyerhaeuser Company
Type	Public (NYSE: WY, TSX: WYL)
Founded	1900
Headquarters	Federal Way, Washington
Key people	Steven R. Rogel (CEO, Chairman) Richard E. Hanson (COO)
Industry	pulp and paper
Revenue	$22.629 billion USD (2005)[1]
Operating income	$1.359 billion USD (2005)
Net income	$0.733 billion USD (2005)
Employees	49,900 (2006)
Website	www.weyerhaeuser.com

Weyerhaeuser is one of the largest pulp and paper companies in the world; the world's largest private owner of softwood timberland; and the second largest owner in the United States, behind International Paper. Weyerhaeuser has approximately 50,000 employees in 20 countries, including United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, China, Mexico, Ireland, France, and Uruguay.

Contents 1 History 2 Operations 3 Corporate governance 4 Criticism 4.1 Environmental concerns 4.2 Indigenous resistance 4.3 Guns 5 References 6 External links

[edit] History

In January 1900, Friedrich Weyerhäuser founded the company as Weyerhaeuser Timber Company with 15 partners and 900,000 acres (3,600 km²) of Washington timberland.^[2] In 1929, the company built what was then the world's largest sawmill in Longview, Washington. Weyerhaeuser's pulp mill in Longview, which began production in 1931, sustained the company financially during the Great Depression. In 1959, the company eliminated the word "Timber" from its name to better reflect its operations. In 1965, Weyerhaeuser built its first bleached kraft pulp mill in Canada. Weyerhaeuser implemented its High Yield Forestry Plan in 1967 which drew upon 30 years of forestry research and field experience. It called for the planting of seedlings within one year of a harvest, soil fertilization, thinning, rehabilitation of brushlands, and, eventually, genetic improvement of trees.

Weyerhaeuser consolidated its core businesses in the late 1990s and ended its services in mortgage banking, personal care products, financial services, and information systems consulting. Weyerhaeuser also expanded into South America, Australia, and Asia. In 1999, Weyerhaeuser purchased MacMillan Bloedel Limited, a large Canadian forestry company. In 2005, Weyerhaeuser joined the Information Protection Solutions of America, a consortium of document destruction companies, to facilitate Weyerhaeuser's entrance into the document destruction business.^[3] On August 23, 2006, Weyerhaeuser announced a merge with Domtar's fine paper business in a $3.3 billion cash and stock deal.

[edit] Operations

Financial Information
	2005	2004	2003	2002	2001
Net Sales (US$M)	22,629	21,931	19,873	18,521	14,545
Net Earnings (Loss) (US$M)	733	1283	277	241	354

Weyerhaeuser imports timber products from Malaysia, Chile, and Brazil, and has timber operations or offices in 44 American states, Canada, and 18 other countries. Weyerhaeuser is one of North America's largest distributors of wood products; it owns more than seven million acres (28,000 km²) of land in the U.S., and holds logging rights to more than 35 million acres (142,000 km²) of land in Canada. Weyerhaeuser has expanded beyond its roots in lumber and wood products; it controls more than 100 subsidiaries in fields such as construction, real estate sales, and development.

The company's operations are divided into five major business segments:

• Timberlands — Growing and harvesting trees in renewable cycles.
• Wood Products — Manufacturing and distribution of building materials for homes and other structures.
• Pulp and Paper — Produces a variety of papers and the pulp used to produce papers, absorbent products, photographic film, and several others.
• Containerboard Packaging and Recycling — Produces paper, boxes, and bags to move products from factories to the household. The segment collects and recycles wastepaper, boxes, and newsprint to make new products.
• Real Estate — Builds homes and develops land. Weyerhaeuser has five subsidiaries collectively called WRI, the largest of which is Pardee Homes.

The company also operates an IT internship program to develop professionals for employment in its IT department.

[edit] Corporate governance

The Weyerhaeuser board of directors consists of: Richard Haskayne, Robert Herbold, Martha Rivers Ingram, John W. Kieckhefer, Arnold Langbo, Don Mazankowski, Nicole Piasecki, Steven Rogel, Richard Sinkfield, D. Michael Steuert, James Sullivan, and Charles Williamson.

[edit] Criticism

There have been some activists who have complained about company policies ranging from clear-cut logging to conversion of native forests to tree plantations devoid of biodiversity and mill closures among others.

[edit] Environmental concerns

Weyerhaeuser is North America’s top logger and distributor of forest products from old growth and endangered forests. More than four hundred global companies have already dissociated themselves from endangered forest destruction, including American forest products company Boise Cascade Corporation. Unlike the other leading businesses, Weyerhaeuser ignores evolving demands from its customers and refuses to respond to the crisis facing the world’s forests.

Weyerhaeuser has made many claims that their operations are “green” however facts tell a different story. More than 128,000 square kilometers (50,000 mile²) of Canadian public lands lay open to Weyerhaeuser’s environmentally destructive practices. Weyerhaeuser logs on lands as ecologically varied as the temperate rainforests of the Canadian Coast on Vancouver Island, to pine forests in the interior of British Columbia, to the slow-growing boreal forest stretching across Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Ontario, and to the maritime forests of New Brunswick.

One third of Weyerhaeuser’s softwood timber comes solely from Canadian public lands. Each year, 650 square kilometres are felled by Weyerhaeuser’s chainsaws and turned into 2 x 4’s, toilet paper, and packaging mostly for export to the United States.

In 1999, Weyerhaeuser purchased MacMillan Bloedel, a large Canadian timber company that had agreed in 1998 to phase out clear-cut harvesting in British Columbia and pursue a new strategy to conserve old growth and wildlife habitat. However, Weyerhaeuser has not honoured the commitment; its new “variable retention” cutting on the B.C. coast is often indistinguishable from clear-cuts.

In addition, Weyerhaeuser's Kenora, Ontario mill, has been heavily criticized as a toxic pulp and paper mill that is poisoning the people of Grassy Narrows. Band members suffer from toxic levels of mercury released by Weyerhaeuser's mill. For decades, the company's Dryden, Ontario paper mill dumped the poison into the English River, where it accumulated in fish and groundwater.

Since the 1990s, increasing demand from Weyerhaeuser mills have driven accelerated cutting in the forests of Grassy Narrows. If adopted, Abitibi's new harvest plan would permit accelerated cutting through 2024 and cause incalculable damage to the forest and the people of Grassy Narrows.

[edit] Indigenous resistance

In Ontario, Weyerhaeuser purchases fiber for its Kenora and Dryden mills from forests within the traditional territory of the people of Asubpeeschoseewagong, or the Grassy Narrows First Nation. Weyerhaeuser buys 50% of the 1.4 million cubic meters of wood harvested by Canadian timber company Abitibi in the Whiskey Jack forest - part of which is the traditional territory of Grassy Narrows.

As a result, the Grassy Narrows First Nation have used non-violent direct action - in the form of blockades and protests - to try to halt logging on their traditional territory.

The Grassy Narrows First Nation is located 80 kilometers north of Kenora, in Northern Ontario, with a band membership of more than one thousand. The reserve is surrounded by over 2,500 square miles of forest within the band's "Traditional Land Use Area" - an area where the band has hunted, trapped, gathered berries, and fished for thousands of years. These forests make it possible for the people of Grassy Narrows to maintain many traditions which have been passed down from generation to generation.

Large-scale timber harvests since the 1950s have decimated these forests, and altered the Ojibway way of life forever. Large piles of trees are wasted, left to decay after they have been cut. Remaining land left after a cut is covered in herbicide and other chemicals, killing blueberry bushes and plants traditionally used for medicinal purposes. Without the forests, much of the wildlife is also disappearing, making it impossible to continue hunting and trapping on Grassy Narrows' traditional land.

According to Joe Fobister, spokesperson for the Grassy Narrows First Nation Environmental Committee, "Over 50 percent of our traditional land has been clear-cut. There's reforestation but it's all monoculture tree farming. They plant trees they're going to harvest again. The land is turning into a tree farm." Weyerhaeuser has no right to turn the forests of Grassy Narrows into paper. Aboriginal treaty rights set out in the Royal Proclamation of 1763 and secured by Treaty #3 and the Canadian constitution clearly mandate that control over the land be returned to the people of Grassy Narrows. Despite this, Abitibi and Weyerhaeuser continue their assault on the people of Grassy Narrows. Abitibi has even resorting to advertising campaigns instructing schoolchildren in Grassy Narrows that Abitibi has a "spiritual tie" to the land. In response to the destruction of their land, the people of Grassy Narrows have resisted in every way they know how. From posting signs on all roads into the traditional land use area "declaring [their] land rights," to non-violent human blockades to obstruct logging roads, to filing a lawsuit against the Ontario government for allowing Abitibi to continue operations, the people of Grassy Narrows are not giving up without a fight.

[edit] Guns

On October 1, 2002, the company sent detection dogs into the parking lot of their Valliant, Oklahoma plant looking for drugs in cars in response to an employee drug overdose. They found no drugs, but the dogs alerted on 12 cars with guns in them. The company then ordered the employees to open their cars for a hand search, and rifles, shotguns, and handguns were found. The 12 employees were immediately suspended.^{[citation needed]}

Two days later, the company fired all 12 employees, including a shift supervisor of 23 years with an exemplary record.^{[citation needed]} Jimmy 'Red' Wyatt and all the others said that they were never told of the policy change, extending the company gun ban to the parking lot, which had occurred in 2002.^{[citation needed]}

The plant manager, Mr. Nebel said that firing the men was difficult but he felt safer with all the guns out of the parking lot. Mr. Nebel stated that all the employees had been warned of the policy change.^{[citation needed]}

Several of the fired men have filed a civil suit against Weyerhaeuser for wrongful termination, with Tulsa attorney Larry Johnson representing them. Mr.Johnson, a longtime Second Amendment lawyer, said that this was an injustice that must be addressed.^[4]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Weyerhaeuser Company Web Site
• iLevel by Weyerhaeuser : Structural Frame Business Web Site

v • d • e Weyerhaeuser Co.
Corporate Directors: Richard Haskayne | Robert Herbold | Martha Rivers Ingram | John Kieckhefer | Arnold Langbo | Don Mazankowski | Nicole Piasecki | Steven Rogel | Richard Sinkfield | D. Michael Steuert | James Sullivan | Charles Williamson
Annual Revenue: $22.7 billion USD (14% FY 2004) | Employees: 53,646 | Stock Symbol: NYSE: WY | Website: www.weyerhaeuser.com