1. Home
  2. Articles posted by: Rona Fried (Page 2669)

World Bank Draft Policy on Forests Does Not Safeguard Primary Forests

rainforestFinal.jpg

The World Bank is in the final stages of review of its long awaited draft policy on forests. The proposed policy represents a severe weakening of the existing Operational Policy on Forests of 1993. Its planned provisions are unacceptable because they lack proper safeguards and pose a high risk to the forests and forest peoples who will inevitably be harmed when Bank projects go wrong.They call it a “safeguard policy”, but according to Forests.org, the World Rainforest Movement, and Environmental Defense, among others, the policy flies in the face of demands of civil society and ignores the advice given to the Bank by its own Technical Advisory Group. It fails to address the main causes of deforestation the Bank identifies as globalization, and economic liberalization, and poor governance. It relies on market forces or marketing arrangements to address deforestation. Large-scale timber export and carbon sequestration projects are the likely beneficiaries. Yet there is no evidence to date that these projects can be effective in promoting environmentally sound and socially equitable development.The proposed policy opens the doors to Bank extractive investments in all types of forests except those Bank bureaucrats deem to be “critical forests”. The only mention of participation is […]

Read More

Dean Buys White Wave for $189 Million

silk-truckFinal.jpg

by Joseph LewandowskiOn May 10, White Wave founder Steve Demos stood before a standing room-only crowd in a packed New York City hotel ballroom and delivered the message he’d waited nearly 30 years to pitch: Operating a business dedicated to the principals of right livelihood and sustainable agriculture can deliver not only spiritual fulfillment, but big-time profits.Two days before, Demos announced that Dean Foods, the giant Dallas-based dairy and beverage company, had purchased White Wave for $189 million.For Boulder, Colo.-based White Wave, the purchase means the company will have the financial and physical resources to put more of its soy products – primarily its Silk soy beverage – into more consumers’ homes. Dean will provide cash and expertise to expand marketing and manufacturing. The company’s 120 dairy and manufacturing facilities scattered throughout 38 states will provide much-needed production facilities for Silk. Currently, White Wave can’t meet consumer demand.Demos started making organic tofu in 1977 in Boulder and built the company into a powerhouse that last year generated $125 million in sales, mostly attributable to Silk. But White Wave didn’t have the money to keep up with national demand and maintain its market lead in the soy milk category.Dean, which bought […]

Read More