Can you imagine what life would be like without chocolate? Don’t think it could happen? Think again. This hypothetical life could become a reality thanks to a heartless and habitat-destroying company known as Boise Cascade.

Over the last several years Boise Cascade has been one of the most prominent logging companies in America. But the long arm of the company reaches far beyond out great nation. The reckless actions of Boise Cascade reach deep into international affairs. What they are doing affects the whole world. Their blatant disrespect for the environment has left people shocked and appalled. They have assisted in the decimation of one of Mother Nature’s most fragile eco-systems, the tropical rain forests.

Boise Cascade was established in 1957 after Boise Payette Lumber and Cascade Lumber, two small Northwestern companies, merged. Today it is the fourth largest logging company in the United States. It can also be found on the New York Stock Exchange under the call letters BCC. The company’s main products are wood and paper, as well as other office supplies. Their motto is (pay attention because this is good), “Our employees provide these products while working to protect the environment from which the products come.”

For lack of a less colorful word I will just simply state that is complete bullshit. A company can not logically claim to help the planet and then go and cut down trees in the Amazon rain forest, a location where Boise Cascade gets material for some of their products. By mutilating the forest the company damages all aspects of life. Animals that depend on the rain forest will become endangered, if not extinct.

We lose over 20,000 species each year. Rain forests never grow back, not even over hundreds of years.

This impacts the whole world. It will decrease the Earth’s oxygen output from trees and the food supply, too. Things like lemon, limes and even chocolate are found in the tropical rain forests. And life-saving medicines are located there as well.

Call me crazy, but I just do not comprehend how a company that takes away all these things can claim to “protect the environment.” A better, more honest mission statement would be, “We enjoy killing animals, trees and humans because we enjoy making money.” This is a much more definitive statement for the corporation.

Unfortunately Boise Cascade is also taking its toll on U.S. soil. Earlier this year the government made a huge leap forward in environmental protection by creating the U.S. Roadless Area Conservation Policy. This initiative would have saved 58.5 million acres of natural wilderness from commercial logging and road building. Companies such as Lowe’s and Kinkos plus 1.5 million Americans showed strong support for the policy. However, the measure was thwarted by none other than the big bad wolf, Boise Cascade. Two days before it was to be activated, Boise Cascade filed a lawsuit against it and halted implementation. An appeal is pending.

Hopefully something will be done to clean up the long list of dirty logging that Boise Cascade has managed to rack up. I am certainly not the tree-hugger type but I can recognize when action needs to be taken.

Currently the Sierra Club and the rain forest Action Network are working on the issue. To get involved you can go to the respective Web site of each group to find out how. Action must be launched. We need to save the planet, the animals and of course the chocolate.

Ayrel Clark is a freshman in pre-journalism and mass communication from Johnston.