Lucas,
Now that the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics have drawn to a close, preparations
for the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo are already well underway. Olympic
authorities promised it will be one of the greenest Olympic games in history.
Tokyo Olympic authorities admitted that they are using irreplaceable rainforest
wood in the construction of stadiums. At least 87 percent of the plywood
panels used for Tokyo's New National Stadium came from the rainforests
of Malaysia and Indonesia.1
Progressives have pushed the Tokyo authorities to do better, but they
need to feel more pressure. We need the International Olympic Committee
to use its influence to ensure that no more rainforests are harmed for
the Tokyo Olympics.
Sign your name now: Tell the International Olympic Committee: No more rainforest
destruction for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Japan is the largest importer of plywood from tropical forests, and half
of that plywood comes from the Malaysian state of Sarawak on the island
of Borneo.2 Sarawak has one of the highest rates of deforestation in the world, and
Indigenous communities in Sarawak have been fighting logging for decades.3
Environmental activists have long suspected that the Tokyo Olympics was
using wood from Sarawak rainforests, but only now have they gotten confirmation.
Over a year after the information was originally requested by Rainforest
Action Network and more than 40 other groups, Tokyo 2020 Olympic organizers
have finally acknowledged extensive use of tropical rainforest wood to
construct the New National Stadium and other Tokyo 2020 facilities.4
Even worse, the organization is getting that plywood from a timber supplier
with a well-documented history of rainforest destruction, illegal logging
and human rights abuses.5 Instead of sourcing sustainable wood locally in Japan, the Tokyo Olympics
authorities are devastating priceless rainforests and trampling the rights
of Indigenous people to cut costs.
Rainforest advocates want Olympic organizers to cease using tropical wood,
implement third party verification for the timber supply chain, respect
Indigenous communities’ rights to natural resources and adopt robust
sourcing requirements for all other commodities that could come from at-risk forests.6
We can amplify their call to action by telling the International Olympic
Committee that the world is watching what happens in Tokyo.
Sign your name: Tell the International Olympic Committee: No more rainforest
destruction for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Thanks for fighting back,
Brandy Doyle, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets
References:
- Rainforest Action Network, "Global NGOs 'appalled' by massive use of high risk rainforest wood for Tokyo 2020 Olympics construction," Feb. 15, 2018.
- Tracy Staedter, "Prized Forests Lost Big at This Year’s Olympics," Earther, Feb. 6, 2018.
- Ibid.
- Rainforest Action Network, "Global NGOs 'appalled' by massive use of high risk rainforest wood for Tokyo 2020 Olympics construction."
- Rainforest Action Network, "NGOs demand Olympic authorities end rainforest destruction and human rights abuses connected to Tokyo 2020 Olympics construction," Sept. 11, 2017.
- Rainforest Action Network, "No more rainforest destruction for Tokyo 2020 Olympics," accessed Feb. 22, 2018.