Rainforest Action Network

Rainforest Action Network
Abbreviation	RAN
Motto	Environmentalism with teeth.
Formation	1985
Type	NGO
Purpose/focus	Environmental protection
Headquarters	San Francisco, California
Executive Director	Rebecca Tarbotton
Website	ran.org

Rainforest Action Network activists protesting the expansion of palm oil and soy plantations into critical ecosystems, near Chicago Board of Trade, September 22nd 2008.

Jungle burned to clear land for agriculture in southern Mexico.

Rainforest Action Network (RAN) is an environmental organization based in San Francisco, California, USA. The organization was founded by Randy "Hurricane" Hayes and Mike Roselle in 1985, with the financial help of Fund for Wild Nature.

Activities and structure

RAN campaigns for the forests and rainforests, their inhabitants and the natural systems that sustain life by transforming the global marketplace through grassroots organizing, education and non-violent direct action. RAN helped pioneer market campaigns against large multinational corporations in the 1990s, using grassroots activism and savvy media work to advocate for changes in environmental policies. Since then, RAN has had numerous successes in its campaigns against logging companies, banks, and vehicle manufacturers.

RAN relies on grassroots organizing, media stunts, and the use of non-violent civil disobedience to pressure corporations into publicly adopting environmental policies that address issues ranging from deforestation to global warming.

RAN works in close alliance with an increasingly well-coordinated movement of NGOs (non-governmental organizations). Along with Global Exchange and the Ruckus Society, RAN played a central role in organizing the mass actions against the WTO (World Trade Organization) summit in Seattle in 1999. Although the organization once had RAGS (Rainforest Action Groups) around the country, today its operations are centralized in San Francisco.

The organization's board of directors includes André Carothers, Anna Hawken McKay, Anna Lappé of the Small Planet Institute, James Gollin, a founding member of the Social Venture Network and Jodie Evans, a founder of Code Pink Women for Peace. Honorary members of RAN's board include Ali McGraw, Bob Weir, Bonnie Raitt, Chris Noth, John Densmore and Woody Harrelson.

Campaigns

Global Finance: Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining

The Global Finance campaign targets banks involved in the financing of mountaintop removal coal mining (MTR) in the Appalachian Mountains of the United States. This form of surface mining uses millions of tons of explosives^[1] to blow apart mountain peaks in order to access the coal seam below. Past targets have included JP Morgan Chase, which was one of the leading financiers of mountaintop removal mining,^[2] as well as the United States Environmental Protection Agency, which issues the permits for MTR.

Rainforest Agribusiness: Palm Oil

RAN's Rainforest Agribusiness campaign, The Problem With Palm Oil, centers around the social and environmental impact of palm oil plantations in the rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia. Palm oil plantations in these areas result in the clearcutting of tropical hardwoods, the killing of local wildlife, the displacement of local communities and a significant increase in greenhouse gas emissions. While still targeting Cargill, the largest supplier of palm oil to the United States,^[3] with minimal success, RAN moved to one of Cargill's palm oil customers, General Mills. RAN has used direct action tactics, negotiation and membership engagement to convince General Mills to source environmentally and socially sustainable palm oil.

We Can Change Chevron: Toxic Waste Oil

Launched in December 2009, the We Can Change Chevron campaign targets the California-based oil corporation for Texaco's dumping of 18 billion US gallons (68,000,000 m³) of waste oil into the Amazon Rainforest in Ecuador.^[4] We Can Change Chevron aims to pressure Chevron into paying for the cleanup of the waste oil pits abandoned by their subsidiary, and to develop an environmental and human rights policy that will prevent future scenarios like this from occurring in the future. Chevron acquired Texaco in 2001, and asserts that Texaco completed its agreement to clean up its share of the waste generated by the joint venture between Texaco and Petroecuador, the state run oil company. The company claims it cleaned up one third of the waste, more than its share of the agreement with Petroecuador, and the rest of the responsibility lies with the state who has had sole ownership of the oil fields since 1992.^[5][6]

Freedom From Oil: Tar Sands

RAN's Freedom From Oil campaign is focused on halting Royal Bank of Canada's funding of the tar sands, an oil extraction project in the Alberta region of Canada. The Please Help Us Mrs. Nixon tactic targeted the wife of CEO Gordon Nixon, asking her to convince her husband to stop financing the environmentally detrimental project. In addition, RAN has organized a number of rallies to call attention to the bank's connection to the tar sands, including the Toronto-based protest at RBC's Annual General Meeting in March 2010.^[7]

Tax-exempt status

In 2003, the organization was the subject of a Congressional investigation as to whether it should be allowed to keep its tax-exempt non-profit 501(c)(3) status. RAN was subpoenaed by the House Ways and Means Committee to hand over every document and piece of footage relating to all protests the organization participated in since 1993, in order to investigate whether they should be entitled to the tax-exempt status. The organization labeled this investigation an "attempt to intimidate RAN's supporters, and a part of a larger and more disturbing effort by corporate interests to stifle dissent and control free speech."

Criticism

RAN has come under criticism for its support of the Forest Stewardship Council,^[8] though they maintain that their engagement with this group is necessary to push for stronger rules to protect forests and the rights of forest communities.^[9]

In 2003, the group was criticized by the television show Penn & Teller: Bullshit! stating that the group is composed of activists possessing very little knowledge of the causes they champion.^[10]

See also

	Environment portal
	Earth sciences portal
	Sustainable development portal

• Amazon Rainforest
• Conservation ethic
• Conservation movement
• Environmental movement
• Environmental movement in the United States
• Glenn Switkes
• Rainforest Foundation Fund

References

External links

• Rainforest Action Network
• Rainforest Action Network blog
• RAN's Tar Sands Campaign
• RAN's work to protect Grassy Narrows First Nation, in Kenora, Ontario
• RAN's activism to prevent deforestation to make way for palm oil plantations
• Rainforest web - World Rainforest Information Portal
• The Disappearing Rainforests from Raintree Nutrition
• Conservatives target the Rainforest Action Network at SourceWatch
• Guide to the Rainforest Action Network Records at The Bancroft Library