Today is the National Day of Action against an environmentally destructive corporation called Boise Cascade. Over 60 actions will take place across the country, including a rally in Kent State at 1 p.m. at the M.A.C. Center, and a region-wide protest at Boise's Cleveland headquarters at 4 p.m.

Students are campaigning to end Kent State's contract with Boise, which is the university's primary source of paper and office supplies. Huge companies like Home Depot and Lowe's have caved to consumer pressure and agreed to stop using rare old growth wood. Yet Boise remains a leader in world-wide destruction of old growth trees and endangered rain forests. Until recently, Boise has been the single largest logger of U.S. public lands and is one of the country's largest loggers of old growth forests. The forest service loses money on this, meaning that taxpayers are actually subsidizing Boise's destruction of public forests! One-and-a-half million Americans -- unprecedented in history -- submitted comments supporting the U.S. Roadless Policy, which would protect 58.5 million acres of wilderness from commercial logging and road building. Yet Boise led a lawsuit to defeat this policy.

Due to intense public pressure and the increasing unavailability of old growth trees, Boise recently pledged to eventually phase out logging on U.S. timber stands that meet Boise's weak definition of "old growth." Whether it will keep this promise remains to be seen. In the meantime, huge ancient trees continue to fall to Boise's chain saws, even though the United States has already lost 95 percent of its old growth forests.

Boise also imports massive quantities of wood from endangered forests in the Amazon Basin, Southeast Asia, Canada, Australia and around the world. These imports are bringing Boise millions in profits but at the expense of ecosystems that are rapidly shrinking.

Rainforests are home to more than half of the world's plant and animal species. Yet according to the National Academy of Science, 50 million acres of rainforest, an area the size of Great Britain, are destroyed every year. This results in mass extinction and the destruction of priceless medicines which could potentially cure AIDS and cancer. The homelands of indigenous peoples and some of the most beautiful features of this once green planet are becoming lost forever.

As if this were not enough, Boise has also accumulated an atrocious record of social irresponsibility. Boise's International Falls paper mill received the largest fine ever levied by the Minnesota Labor and Industry Commissioner--$145,554 for 1,669 health and safety violations. The AFL-CIO has also blasted Boise for union-busting tactics. Boise has been sued for sexual harassment and has allegedly been linked with human rights violations in Mexico. They even damaged a priceless archeological site in Chile in 1999, according to the Rainforest Action Network.

Our university is losing its ethical integrity by doing business with Boise. Every dollar we give to Boise is another rain forest tree cut down. If you pay tuition, you are unwillingly contributing to ecological genocide. The University of Notre Dame, University of Indiana and several other colleges and companies have already dumped Boise. Let's make KSU next. Come to the rallies today and be a voice for life-forms that can't speak for themselves. Tell the administration: "We Do Not Consent! Boise Out of Kent!"

E-mail: mpesa@kent.edu

Mike Pesa is a junior history major and a columnist for the Daily Kent Stater.