McDonald's Vs Biology4: Man and Environment


Summary:Klimuszko wrote a primary school book which made reference to McD and the disappearance of tropical rainforest. The publishing house was forced to withdraw the book, make amendments and apologise.


LETTER FROM McDONALD'S TO THE POLISH PUBLISHING HOUSE OF B. KLIMUSZKO'S SCHOOLBOOK

Warsaw, July 27 1995.

In line with the conclusions reached on July 3 1995 please find enclosed our draft letters. In formulating those letters we took account of your suggestions so as to mitigate our demands as far as possible. I hope that the enclosed draft letters will be approved by you. We kindly request that you send them to the addresses, that is to us (McDonald's Poland) and primary schools* as well as kuratoria**. We also request that you should confirm the receipt of this letter and notify us of the sending of the letters.

We expect the letter to kuratoria and primary schools to be sent by September 5 1995.

Yours faithfully
Timothy J. Fenton
Managing Director(President)
McDonald's Poland


Enclosures:

No. 1: Letter to McDonald's Poland LTD (not included )
No. 2: Letter to primary schools and to kuratoria
* Primary schools - general education for all children aged 7 to 15
**Kuratoria - units of school administration at the provincial (voivodship) level.
No. 3: Letter of apology by McDonald's for publishing company to sign and send out to Polish schools.


(This letter was penned for the author BY McDonald's as as an apology)

Enclosure No. 2
Warsaw July 27 1995.

Dear Sirs,

The book by B Klimuszko:

Biology 4 Man And Environment handbook for primary school fourth-grade students, published by Out Publishing House in 1994, includes the following passage:

"huge areas of land including rain forests, were changed into immense grounds for cattle grazing. It is estimated that in order to produce one hamburger in such a way, 9 square metres of rain forest are being destroyed. McDonald's today is a global company destroying rain forests and producing mountains of plasic waste and at the same time destroying the health of those who still pay for that. This opinion can be read about the largest link in the fast food network now in operation."


We admit that the above statement is unfair and untrue towards McDonald's. McDonald's doesn't conduct and hasn't conducted logging of rain forests, and also it hasn't bought and doesn't buy beef from cattle breeding farms in the rainforest area. In most countries McDonald's, as early as a few years ago, gave up the use of plastic packaging in favour of paper packaging. Therefore we ask you to accept our apology for including the above mentioned information in a school handbook. At the same time we pledge not to include this passage in books made available to fourth grades from primary schools in the year 1995 and in consecutive years.

With regard to books already printed, we pledge to exchange the page in question or to stick it down in a way that will make it impossible to read the original text. Also please note that very soon we will address all primary schools in Poland with information correcting the untrue data included in the 1994 edition.
Yours faithfully
Zofia Dobkowska


(Again, this letter was written for the author BY McDonald's)

Enclosure No 3
Letter to Primary Schools and kuratoria

Dear Sirs,

The book by B. Klimuszko: Biology 4 Man And Environment handbook for primary school fourth grade students, published by Out Publishing House in 1994, includes the following passage

"huge areas of land including rain forests, were changed into immense grounds for cattle grazing. It is estimated that in order to produce one hamburger in such a way, 9 square metres of rainforest are being destroyed. McDonald's today is a global company destroying rain forests and producing mountains of plastic waste and at the same time destroying the health of those who still pay for that. This opinion can be read about the largest link in the fast food network now in operation."


The above statement is untrue and unfair towards McDonald's. McDonald's doesn't conduct and hasn't conducted logging of rain forests and also it hasn't bought and doesn't buy beef from cattle breeding farms in the rainforest area. In most countries McDonald's as early as a few years ago gave up the use of styrofoam (plastic) packaging in favour of paper packaging. The untrue and unfair character of the information prompts us, being the publishing house, to request that, in the course of implementing biology curriculum for grade IV, you include the true information given above as long as the students in these grades make use of the handbook by B. Klimuszko: Biology "Man and Environment" Wydawnictwo Edukacyja, Warszawa1994.

We would also like to note that the latest edition of this book (Warszawa 1995) does not contain the quoted passage any more.
Yours faithfully
Zofia Dobkowska