10 July 2015

Richard Garneau
Resolute Forest Products Company
111 Duke Street, Suite 5000
Montral, Quebec, H3C 2M1, Canada
Dear Mr. Garneau:
When the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement (CBFA) was signed, it was with the
expectation that NGOs and the forestry industry were unified in our purpose to change
the status quo and to embark upon a true journey of change to better align environmental,
social and economic priorities in the Boreal Forest one of the great forest landscapes on
our planet. That spirit of cooperation is clearly present in every NGO and industry
participant in the CBFA except for Resolute Forest Products. After five years of effort, it
has become increasingly clear that Resolute alone has chosen to take a different path.
Therefore, it is with great disappointment that ForestEthics, effective immediately, no
longer recognizes Resolute as part of the CBFA and no longer considers Resolute subject
to the benefits and protections of the agreement.
The marketplace has recognized Resolutes rogue status, and in turn paper, pulp and
lumber buyers are moving away from Resolute. Resolute claims that this is the result of
an anti-Canada campaign. You know that is false. Major buyers of forest fiber are not
moving their purchasing away from Tembec, Tolko, Canfor, or any of the nearly two
dozen CBFA industry members who are in good standing. Only Resolute has inspired a
broad reaction in the marketplace in Canada, the United States, and Europe.
Major customer companies cannot afford to associate their extremely valuable brands
with Resolute. Moreover, I believe that customers will continue to reject Resolute, for the
following reasons:

For the past five years, the NGO signatories to the CBFA have struggled to make
any progress with Resolute and have been met at every turn by disregard for the
stated goals of the agreement. Contrast this with the significant progress made
between industry and NGO signatories toward joint solutions in non-Resolute
tenures across the Boreal.

Resolute is so hostile to conservation that not one NGO member of the CBFA is
currently willing to work with your company.

Resolute failed to come to any multi-party conservation agreements under the

auspices of the CBFA to protect forests in the tenures that you control, despite at
least three attempts to do so in Ontario and Quebec. No other company has a
similar record of failure. For example, in the final hours of the latest round of
negotiations on mutually agreed conservation and logging proposals, the team of

mediators proposed a process to resolve the deadlock. The NGOs agreed to

participate in this last ditch effort at agreement, one that would have required each
of us to reconsider what we were prepared to accept as a basis for addressing the
impasse Resolute refused to even entertain the offer.

Resolutes litigious nature is well known, and the latest examples of using
litigation for intimidation and personal attacks are alarming. In addition to taking
the unheard of step of suing the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certifier,
Rainforest Alliance, you also personally sued the individual certifiers,
permanently impacting their lives. You chose to not follow the procedures
outlined in the voluntary certification scheme that you opted into and publicly
committed to. Instead, you have attempted to intimidate the Rainforest Alliance,
individual certifiers, and potential future certifiers with your lawsuit. The recent
settlement sealed Rainforest Alliances audit report, a decision antithetical to the
transparency that is a foundation of the FSC. This is the kind of aggression,
intimidation, and personal attack that is unique to Resolute and the kind of
behavior that is diametrically opposed to the collaborative spirit required by the
CBFA.

Resolute is also engaged in a lawsuit against Greenpeace Canada and once

again Resolute is personally suing individual non-profit employees as well. The
goal is clearly to do as much personal damage as possible through a deliberate
strategy of litigation-based intimidation. Again Resolute stands alone in taking
this kind of approach.

Resolute is engaged in a campaign to defeat legislation currently being considered

in Ontario to restrict the use of the very kind of intimidation lawsuits that your
company has become synonymous with.

You have repeatedly laid blame for mill closures and mill reductions at the feet of
environmentalists and the requirements of environmental legislation, despite
having a stated corporate consolidation strategy to close mills which has nothing
to do with the environment or environmentalists. This action is instead a function
of decreasing demand for newsprint in addition to other reasons cited by
independent observers, including offers of subsidies and potentially cheaper labor
in the US, inability to satisfy customer needs, a marketplace desire for nonResolute forest products, and advantageous anti-union laws in other jurisdictions.

As the Forest Stewardship Council made clear in its recent letter to you, once
again Resolute is distinguishing itself as an outlier. Having agreed to a variety of
terms by becoming part of FSC, you have now decided to violate those parts of
that agreement that you no longer care to observe. This is the same pattern we
have seen in the CBFA: Resolute remains true to your word and your
commitments only until they become inconvenient.
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Resolute has proven conclusively that you are unwilling and possibly incapable of
collaboration, which is a mandate of the CBFA.
ForestEthics has respected the process of the CBFA, has supported the goals of the
CBFA, and has ceased campaign activities against all industry members of the CBFA for
the last five years to allow collaborative processes the chance to succeed. And for the
most part these efforts are succeeding but not with Resolute. We reaffirm our
commitment to support collaborative approaches to better balance environmental, social,
and economic priorities in the Boreal and to avoid marketplace or other campaigns that
could interfere with these processes with the exception of Resolute Forest Products. In
all other regards, we will continue to jointly participate with FPAC members in meetings
with government, meetings with market place leaders, in conferences, and at other
appropriate public events to describe and celebrate the successes jointly achieved by the
CBFA across all of its six goals as implementation continues.
Five years of inaction, delay, litigation, and dysfunction make clear that Resolute has no
intention of attempting to live up to the ideals and goals that all members of the CBFA
agreed to. As such, ForestEthics no longer considers Resolute to be part of the CBFA, and
Resolute is no longer subject to the benefits and protections of the agreement that we
have abided by for the last five years.
We hope the day comes when Resolute changes its course and decides that it wants to
collaborate for solutions in the Boreal. Our strong suspicion is that this day will not come
until new leadership is established at the company. When that day arrives, we remain
ready to work with Resolute.
Sincerely,

Todd Paglia
Executive Director
ForestEthics
cc:
CBFA ENGO Caucus; Boreal Business Forum; Forest Products Association of
Canada; Resolute Board of Directors