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FYI.....
10:33 AM ET 04/04/98
Greenpeace protests over Canada rainforest logging
=20
(Changes dateline, adds demonstrations in Belgium, Germany)
By Gillian Handyside
BRUSSELS, April 4 (Reuters) - Greenpeace stepped up its
campaign against logging in western Canada's Great Bear
Rainforest with protests on Saturday in the Belgian port of
Antwerp and 23 German cities, the environmentalist group said.
In Antwerp, 30 activists painted a 100-metre (325-foot) long
slogan saying ``Don't buy rainforest destruction. Stop Doman and
Interfor!'' in two-metre (6-1/2-foot) high letters on the hull
of a Candian cargo ship carrying pulp and lumber.
Doman Industries Ltd and International Forest Products Ltd
(Interfor) are Canada's major forest product companies.
The activists, riding in a dinghy, also daubed the Canadian
flag on the side of the Saga Wind, replacing its maple leaf
emblem with a picture of a denuded log.
In the western Canadian port of Vancouver, meanwhile, four
Greenpeace activists were starting a 21-day jail sentence for
their part in a protest last June aimed at preventing Interfor
from clearing part of the Great Bear forest.
Greenpeace said in a statement issued in Brussels and London
that the activists -- two Belgians, one German and one Canadian
-- were the first from the group to be jailed in 10 years.
Fourteen other people involved in the protest were given 21-day
suspended sentences.
Greenpeace contends that wildlife and watersheds are being
destroyed by unrestrained logging practices such as
clear-cutting. It wants a moratorium on the remaining intact
rainforest valleys.
The Forest Alliance, which represents the Canadian timber
industry on environmental issues, had accused Greenpeace of
mis-stating the impact of logging on wildlife and ignoring the
industry's efforts to become more responsible.
In Germany, Greenpeace said it had blocked the entrance of
Frankfurt's Clariant plant, which imports chemical pulp from
Canada's rainforest, and launched demonstrations in 23 cities
around the country.
The group has urged the Belgian lumber industry to join the
Dutch trade union FNV in condemning Canadian logging practices.
Greenpeace said in a statement it would urge Belgian lumber
importers to boycott Interfor and Doman's Western Forest
Products unit. A number of major European and U.S. companies had
pledged to refuse their rainforest products, it said.
Greenpeace's Jon Walters said the protest was part of the
pressure group's fight against Canadian logging practices, which
has pitted it against British Colombia's timber industry.
Greenpeace said the Great Bear Rainforest is ``of global
ecological significance'' and sacred to the native Nuxalk tribe
which has also urged timber companies to stop logging in the
area, Greenpeace said.
It said the last time its activists had been sent to jail
was in 1989 when they tried to block discharge pipelines at
Britain's Sellafield nuclear re-processing plant.
^REUTERS@
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<DIV><PRE>FYI..... </PRE><PRE> </PRE><PRE>10:33 AM ET 04/04/98
Greenpeace protests over Canada rainforest logging
=20
(Changes dateline, adds demonstrations in Belgium, Germany)
By Gillian Handyside
BRUSSELS, April 4 (Reuters) - Greenpeace stepped up its
campaign against logging in western Canada's Great Bear
Rainforest with protests on Saturday in the Belgian port of
Antwerp and 23 German cities, the environmentalist group said.
In Antwerp, 30 activists painted a 100-metre (325-foot) long
slogan saying ``Don't buy rainforest destruction. Stop Doman and
Interfor!'' in two-metre (6-1/2-foot) high letters on the hull
of a Candian cargo ship carrying pulp and lumber.
Doman Industries Ltd and International Forest Products Ltd
(Interfor) are Canada's major forest product companies.
The activists, riding in a dinghy, also daubed the Canadian
flag on the side of the Saga Wind, replacing its maple leaf
emblem with a picture of a denuded log.
In the western Canadian port of Vancouver, meanwhile, four
Greenpeace activists were starting a 21-day jail sentence for
their part in a protest last June aimed at preventing Interfor
from clearing part of the Great Bear forest.
Greenpeace said in a statement issued in Brussels and London
that the activists -- two Belgians, one German and one Canadian
-- were the first from the group to be jailed in 10 years.
Fourteen other people involved in the protest were given 21-day
suspended sentences.
Greenpeace contends that wildlife and watersheds are being
destroyed by unrestrained logging practices such as
clear-cutting. It wants a moratorium on the remaining intact
rainforest valleys.
The Forest Alliance, which represents the Canadian timber
industry on environmental issues, had accused Greenpeace of
mis-stating the impact of logging on wildlife and ignoring the
industry's efforts to become more responsible.
In Germany, Greenpeace said it had blocked the entrance of
Frankfurt's Clariant plant, which imports chemical pulp from
Canada's rainforest, and launched demonstrations in 23 cities
around the country.
The group has urged the Belgian lumber industry to join the
Dutch trade union FNV in condemning Canadian logging practices.
Greenpeace said in a statement it would urge Belgian lumber
importers to boycott Interfor and Doman's Western Forest
Products unit. A number of major European and U.S. companies had
pledged to refuse their rainforest products, it said.
Greenpeace's Jon Walters said the protest was part of the
pressure group's fight against Canadian logging practices, which
has pitted it against British Colombia's timber industry.
Greenpeace said the Great Bear Rainforest is ``of global
ecological significance'' and sacred to the native Nuxalk tribe
which has also urged timber companies to stop logging in the
area, Greenpeace said.
It said the last time its activists had been sent to jail
was in 1989 when they tried to block discharge pipelines at
Britain's Sellafield nuclear re-processing plant.
^REUTERS@</PRE></DIV></BODY></HTML>
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