community-based, non-corporate, participatory media
community-based, non-corporate, participatory media
Voices for Animals protests Victoria's Secret's chainsaw massacre
by Voices for Animals
Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2006 at 8:33 AM
voicesforanimals@gmail.com 1-877-321-4vfa PO Box 7181 pittsburgh pa 15213
On friday October 13 Voices for animals assembled outside Shadyside's Victoria's Secret store clad in "barkface" masks (a spoof off the Texas chainsaw massacre's "leatherface") and chainsaws to draw attention to the horror story that is taking place in North America's endangered forests.
With the release of another Texas Chainsaw Massacre film this Halloween season, Americans will again consider the horror of being stalked, mysteriously hunted down, and sewn into a piece of Leatherface's flesh-patched mask. The animal advocacy organization Voices for Animals of Western Pennsylvania says that this fictitious horror story isn't so far-flung for the endangered ecosystems destroyed by Victoria's Secret for the 395 million catalogs they send out each year.
Members of the Pittsburgh-based group assembled in front of Shadyside's Victoria's Secret store last Friday, October 13 to act out this real life horror story that destroys Canada's Boreal Forest – North America's largest intact forest -- at a rate of 2 acres per minute. Volunteers in "Barkface" masks, brandishing chainsaws, and surrounded by models of tree stumps and dead songbirds hoped to symbolize for evening shoppers the devastating effects that Victoria 's Secret is having on the environment.
"Victoria's Secret has done a hack-job in the Boreal forest," said VFA volunteer Jon Farinelli. "They're terrorizing millions of animals, stalking them with chainsaws and bulldozers, and chipping their homes down to make catalogs. This massacre is something that should stay in the movies and out of our forests."
The Boreal Forest is one of the world's three largest intact forests and home to endangered species of wolves, bears, and woodland caribou, as well as a third of America's migrating songbirds. It supports not only the largest fresh water system in the world, but its rich soil and flora have also made it the world's largest terrestrial carbon storehouse.
Voices for Animals locally organized the event for the national environmental organization Forest Ethics, who has had past success with paper campaigns against Staples and Office Depot while currently working with leaders of the catalog industry to reform their logging practices. Voices for Animals and Forest Ethics has asked that Victoria's Secret reduce their paper use; stop logging in the Boreal and any other endangered forests; increase the amount of post-consumer waste in their catalogs to at least 50% over the next 5 years; and adopt the more sustainable Forest Stewardship Council logging practices.
"When Victoria's Secret takes responsibility for their imprint on our forests, our group will stop showing up outside their stores," said Farinelli. "When they begin doing the math on the lives that are jeopardized by their logging practices and actually make the change that will decrease those numbers, maybe then we'll be acting out a coming-of-age story rather than a horror story."
For more information visit:
http://www.victoriasdirtysecret.net
http://www.vfa-online.org
Barkface
by Voices for Animals
Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2006 at 8:33 AM
voicesforanimals@gmail.com 1-877-321-4vfa PO Box 7181 pittsburgh pa 15213
sweet!
by pittsburgh
Friday, Oct. 20, 2006 at 1:29 PM
That is an awesome attention grabber to a very important issue, thanks VFA, wish i could have made it out... keep up the struggle.
butterfly
by wings
Saturday, Oct. 28, 2006 at 7:27 AM
loripegasus 724-384-0640 818 13TH St
Thank you for your work. I support you in everyway!
Pick on the right person
by Amy
Friday, Jul. 06, 2007 at 12:17 AM
Victoria's Secret stores are actually different companies then victoria's secrets online and catalog companies. So if they want to protest they need to start protesting to the online company and the catalog company not to victoria secret stores. I suggust that people need to do their research before they protest because it is no use if they are barking up the wrong tree.
Pick on the right person...
by druffing
Wednesday, Aug. 22, 2007 at 10:36 AM
They are all the same...I have no idea what you are thinking. Victoria's Secret is Victoria's Secret. Being at the stores is a bigger thought producer for many women and men than protesting at the catalog company, etc.
We need to be visible...where the people go.
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