Mitsubishi Units Reach Deal With Rain Forest Group

Environmentalists are dropping a long-running U.S. boycott against Mitsubishi cars and electronics products after failing to pressure an affiliated Mitsubishi company in Japan to stop tree-cutting practices deemed harmful to rain forests.

Instead, the two U.S. Mitsubishi subsidiaries agreed to become more environmentally friendly by using wood and paper products produced under ecologically sound conditions.

The agreement, which was announced Wednesday, involves only Mitsubishi Motor Sales of America and Mitsubishi Electric America and not their Japanese parent company, Mitsubishi Corp. Nor does it involve the Japan-based Mitsubishi timber company whose tree-cutting practices triggered the original protests eight years ago.

The compromise reflects the difficulties U.S. protesters faced in confronting a Japanese family of far-flung companies that, though they share the same name, no longer operate as one unit.

The Rainforest Action Network, the San Francisco-based group that led the protest against Mitsubishi, organized picketing of car dealerships and other demonstrations for much of this decade in an effort to brand the Mitsubishi corporate family as a major destroyer of rain forests from Southeast Asia to Brazil.

Some observers worried that the positive publicity from Wednesday’s announcement could be exploited by other Mitsubishi companies, offering the timber operation a convenient way to further its criticized practices.

But several environmentalists praised Wednesday’s deal as a good compromise between business and a traditionally confrontational environmental group.

The two U.S. Mitsubishi companies agreed to find alternatives to wood grown in old-growth forests, which can be used in everything from car dealerships to cardboard boxes for TV sets sold in the U.S. They would phase out the use of tree-based paper and packaging products by 2002.

The companies didn’t say how much they would spend.