U.S. timber giant Boise Cascade’s plan for a major forestry project in Chile is facing a new challenge from Chilean environmental organizations. On June 27, lawyers for five conservation groups here filed the first-ever citizen complaint under the Canada-Chile Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (AECCC), an environmental side accord to the bilateral free-trade pact Chile and Canada signed in 1997. The groups argue Chile’s lead environmental agency, Conama, failed to follow the law in approving an environmental impact statement (EIS) that Boise Cascade drafted for its venture, Cascada Chile, in June of last year. “The EIS was approved with two addendums from the company, in which the company declined to perform an EIS for the totality of the area of forest because they... [Log in to read more]