Cecil the lion may be getting all the attention, but the same law that was supposed to provide him legal protection has been an unsung hero of corporate social responsibility.
Outrage has descended on Bloomington, Minnesota, home of Walter Palmer, who is accused of illegally killing beloved Zimbabwe safari icon Cecil the lion. If there is a silver lining to this story it may be that the same law Palmer might have violated has quietly been protecting vast swaths of vital forest resources for the past seven years — and pushing multinational firms to pay closer attention to their supply chains.
The Lacey Act, first enacted in 1900 to crack down on wildlife trafficking, was, in 2008, significantly amended to include plants as subject to the same kinds of protections. Conservationists consider the Lacey Act a linchpin in the global effort to stem deforestation and reduce the massive carbon emissions that result from unsustainable logging. It has also driven much greater attention to issues of corporate accountability, diligence and social responsibility.