As Greenpeace Forest Issues Specialist Mathew Jacobson spoke,
other members of Greenpeace unfurled a banner reading, “Stop
Destroying Ancient Forests.”
“What you are doing is wrong,” Jacobson told the audience of
executives from the world’s largest logging companies. “You are
destroying the Earth. You are destroying your children’s future.
Stop destroying the ancient forests!”
The World Wood Summit is a one of the largest events for the
timber industry, featuring top-level industry executives, analysts
and financiers.
According to the World Resources Institute, more than 80 percent
of the world¹s ancient forests have been destroyed. More than half
of that destruction has taken place in the past thirty years. Each
week, an area the size of Rhode Island is ravaged by logging.
“Two thirds of the ancient forests that were here on Earth when
I was born have been destroyed in my lifetime,” said Jacobson who
is thirty-two. “I don’t want my generation to witness the loss of
the last third.”
Last year, Greenpeace launched an intensive campaign to stop
corporate consumers from purchasing ancient forest wood, focusing
on Canada’s temperate rainforests. Greenpeace has blocked shipments
of timber, confronted companies at their headquarters and raised
public awareness about the devastation of ancient forests. As a
result, major companies have canceled their contracts with Canadian
rainforest timber companies, or decided to stop using ancient
forest wood altogether. These companies include, B&Q and Do It
All – the two largest do-it-yourself chains in England, Otto – the
largest mail order company in the world, and in the U.S., Kinko’s
and 3M.
Greenpeace is calling for:
- An immediate end to industrial logging and road building in the
Earth’s remaining ancient forests; - An immediate end to clearcutting in all forests, and
- Businesses to eliminate their uses of all products that destroy
or degrade ancient forests.
Greenpeace is the leading independent organization which uses
peaceful and creative activism to protect the global
environment.
