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NEWS
RELEASE
20 Apr 2002
__________________________________________________
GREEN SHAREHOLDERS WIN REFORMS AT WEYERHAEUSER
Investors approve resolution requiring board
accountability through annual elections.
For
More Information:
Bart
Naylor [GREEN CAP] bartnaylor@aol.com
703.786-7286
John Osborn [RR&CC
/ Sierra
Club]
josbornmd@yahoo.com 509.939-1290
Sam Mace millicoma64@hotmail.com
360-608-4814
______________________________________________
FEDERAL
WAY, WASHINGTON Today investors handed two major
victories to conservationists working to improve management
accountability. A shareholder resolution requiring
annual elections for each director won with 56 percent of
shares voted. The second resolution, commonly referred
to as "shareholder rights" won with 57 percent of the
vote.
"We
ask for greater accountability of Weyerhaeuser directors
because of a legacy of devastated forests and communities,"
said Samantha "Sam" Mace, a leading conservationist in the
Pacific Northwest. Mace stood this morning before the
Weyerhaeuser directors at the company's annual shareholder
meeting, and described the long-term harm Weyerhaeuser has
wrought on the Coos Bay region of southwest
Oregon.
"Weyerhaeuser
logged its lands in the Coos Bay area in the 1960s and '70s
like there was no limit to the supply of trees," Mace told
Weyerhaeuser directors and shareholders. "The company
clearcut steep slopes triggering mudslides and clogging
streams with silt. It sprayed massive amounts of
herbicides on these clearcuts that polluted people's
drinking water. To add insult to injury, Weyerhaeuser
exported many of its raw logs overseas rather than feed the
mills in Coos Bay and keep my neighbors working. Those
family-wage jobs all went to the Far East. These
unsustainable logging practices brought Coos Bay to its
knees in the early '80s."
The
resolution on director elections would change Weyerhaeuser's
present election process, which requires directors be
elected only once every three years. The other winning
resolution, "shareholder rights," would remove a corporate
doomsday device that would destroy the company if an
investor exceeds a threshold of ownership. Both
resolutions are nonbinding on the Board of Directors.
Directors ignore shareholder votes at their own
peril.
"These
victories show that environmentalists and Wall Street have
common interests in improving management of our important
natural resource companies," said Bart Naylor, director of
GREEN CAP.
On
Thursday, the same resolutions are up for vote at Boise
Cascade Corporation. Boise's entrenched opposition to
roadless area protection in federal forests has raised the
ire of green investors.
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PROXY INFORMATION
WEYERHAEUSER
Weyerhaeuser
Proxy Statement to Shareholders
Shareholder
Resolution / Supporting Statement p. 21-22
RESOLVED:
That Weyerhaeuser stockholders urge the Board of Directors
take the necessary steps, in compliance with state law, to
declassify the Board for the purpose of director elections.
The board declassification shall be completed in a manner
that does not affect the unexpired terms of directors
previously elected."
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ADDITIONAL RESOURCES AND
INFORMATION:
Change
Corporate America for 33 Cents: A self-help guide to
Shareholder Activism
(Appendix
3 contains cross-links)
Railroads
& Clearcuts Campaign
A
Photographic Essay: Legacy of Congress's 1864 Northern
Pacific Railroad Land Grant
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