Greenpeace Partners with Industry Logging Canadian Boreal Forests
Along with ForestEthics and other foundation-dependent primary forest logging apologists, Greenpeace negotiates weak
agreement that legitimizes continued old growth forest logging in exchange for vague promises of possible future
protections. Old forest greenwashing must end.
(Canada) - In what they gratuitously herald as the 'world's largest conservation agreement', twenty Canadian forestry
companies and nine environmental organizations including Greenpeace has announced an agreement that will temporarily
suspend for three years any new logging in 29 million hectares of forest – about the size of Montana – to plan for
possible protections of woodland caribou. In return the nine environmental groups have vowed to stop protesting the
companies involved (listed below), including ending their 'Do Not Buy' campaigns.
More troubling, the agreement provides much needed legitimacy to timber and pulp industry efforts to log much, if not
all, of the remaining 43 million hectares of Canada’s old growth Boreal forests, and ultimately much of the caribou
habitat after the moratorium lapses. The agreement uses fancy, meaningless worlds like “ecosystem-based” and
“sustainable forest management” to describe first time industrial logging of primary forests for toilet paper and other
throw-away consumer items.
Ecological Internet (EI) President, Dr. Glen Barry, labeled the agreement "disgraceful", saying it "traded temporary,
vague protections for business as usual industrial forestry across huge expanses of primary and old growth forests."
Ecological Internet advocates a global permanent ban on industrial-scale logging in primary forests both in temperate
and tropical forests, and will continue the campaign to end these practices in Canada’s ecologically priceless Boreal
forests.
"Greenpeace's commitment to 'sustainable' and 'ecosystem based' forest management—for consumer items including toilet
paper and lawn furniture from old forests—is an ecological crime, as we know we have already lost more primary forests
than necessary to maintain global ecosystems and the biosphere. The agreement accepts not only FSC, but industry’s own
certification of antiquated logging practices. This will not stand, and local communities, provincial governments and
First Nations are encouraged to reject this forest greenwash."
The Canadian Boreal Forest is North America’s largest primary forest, holding massive amounts of water, threatened
wildlife and migratory birds, and containing 25% of the world's remaining intact ancient forests. It is also the largest
terrestrial storehouse of carbon on the planet, storing the equivalent of 27 years worth of global greenhouse gas
emissions. Globally 60% of boreal forests have been diminished and fragmented, largely from logging resulting in more
fires.
Ecological Internet and allies vigorously condemn Greenpeace Canada's greenwash endorsement of continued ancient boreal
forest logging, largely to make throw away paper items. They completely fail to understand that all primary and old
growth forests are endangered and of high conservation value. Instead they perpetuate the ecologically criminal myth
that old forests can and should be industrially logged for the first time in an environmentally acceptable manner.
Old forests must be protected and restored for global ecological sustainability. Forests logged industrially for the
first time are permanently ecologically damaged in terms of composition, structure, function and dynamics. Real
solutions to the Boreal forest/paper crisis require shrinking demand, increasing recyclables, and only accessing new
fiber from regenerating secondary forests and mixed species, non-toxic, locally supported plantations.
EI calls upon Greenpeace to immediately cease and desist globally from negotiating agreements with industry that
continue the production of throw away consumer items from Earth's dwindling old forests. Ecological Internet calls upon
Greenpeace to work for full protection of primary forests, restoration of old growth forests, and dramatic reduction in
paper and timber use globally. Ecological Internet’s message remains end primary forest logging. Expect further protest
urging Greenpeace to realize the forest protection movement has moved past claims of sustainable forest management in
primary and old growth forests.
ENDS