“Today, we are naming names,” said Rolf Skar, forest campaigner
with Greenpeace. “The logging companies and customers featured in
this report are driving the destruction of Canada’s Boreal Forest,
our best line of defense against global warming and one of our last
remaining ancient forests.”
The Greenpeace investigative report, “Consuming Canada’s Boreal
Forest: The chain of destruction from logging companies to
consumers,” calls for consumers to protect one of the largest
ancient forests left on Earth. It also condemns the governments of
Canadian provinces Ontario and Quebec, where less than nine and
five percent of the forest respectively is protected from
industrial development.
“We expect customers of these logging companies to temporarily
suspend their multi-million dollar contracts until the ancient
forests can be protected and destructive logging in the Boreal
ends,” added Skar. “We are looking to the marketplace to transform
this situation.”
In addition to environmental destruction-including forest
fragmentation, climate impacts and loss of wildlife habitat and
ecosystem biodiversity-the report also highlights
Abitibi-Consolidated’s refusal to end operations in the traditional
territory of Grassy Narrows First Nation, despite a longstanding
blockade against logging in the native community there.
Canada’s Boreal Forest stretches across northern Canada, from
Newfoundland to the Yukon. It represents a quarter of the world’s
remaining intact ancient forests and stores 47.5 billion tons of
carbon in its soils and trees. Less than 14 percent of the Boreal
forest in Quebec and 18 percent in Ontario remains intact. More
than 68 per cent of the area managed by the three logging companies
named in the report has already been degraded or destroyed.
VVPR info: [email protected]
Notes: The full report and background information can be found at http://usaphoto.greenpeace.org/chainofdestruction
