The Guilfordian

Issue date: 4/18/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Shannon Binns/Green Press Initiative

The corporate headquarters of Lowe's Home Improvement stands outside of Mooresville, N.C. like a series of stark beige boxes when viewed from the distance. With its lengthy one lane drive, helipad, and guard booths standing sentry over the main entrance, the place has an air of invulnerability.

On April 9, the Save Our Cypress Coalition and student activists from UNC-Charlotte and Guilford traveled to the corner of Lowe's Boulevard and Fairview Road to protest the company's usage of unsustainable cypress trees in their mulch products.

The cypress stands of Louisiana and the Gulf Coast serve as a vital form of protection against storm erosion in addition to housing a diverse array of flora and fauna. Incapable of returning to their original density after being cut down, cypress forests are being lost at an alarming rate. Fueled by these anxieties of continual coastal erosion, swamp destruction, and the potential loss of more human life due increasingly unmitigated flooding, the protesters paraded about the intersection.

But rather than charge the gates in an effort to butt heads with the bureaucracy, Save Our Cypress Coalition campaign organizer Dan Favre had another plan in mind. Armed with a cardboard box stuffed with over 10,000 letters of petition representing the voices of everyone from "suburban gardeners to young concert-goers" asking Lowe's to stop supporting the destructive cypress logging industry, Favre merely wanted to make a delivery.

Curiously enough, Lowe's was not accepting mail that day.

"We promised the people that these petitions would be hand-delivered, not left at a gate," said Favre calmly after being refused entry by a man in a booth. A few phone calls later, he was not any closer to getting inside so he resolved to send the letters through the mail instead.

"I just really wanted to drop those petitions off in person," said Favre, wheeling the car around to join the rest of the protesters. "They represent hundreds and hundreds of hours of volunteer time."

Meanwhile, back at the corner, the atmosphere was a mixture of political indignation tempered with Cheerwine and late afternoon silliness. After throwing a batch of live crawfish into a propane fueled pressure cooker, Favre was ready to talk again. He explained how a year and a half ago Save Our Cypress called on Home Depot, Lowe's, and Wal-Mart to stop selling cypress mulch. So far, only Wal-Mart has fully complied with the request.

Continued...

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