Rainforest Bears Deliver Message to CEO's of Logging Companies

["Greenbase" <greenbas@gb.greenpeace.org>]

RAINFOREST BEARS DELIVER MESSAGE TO CEOs OF LOGGING COMPANIES

Stop clearcutting bear habitat, environmentalists demand

(VANCOUVER, B.C.) Monday, 14 April, 1997 -- Today more than
sixty Grizzly, Black and Spirit Bears protested the ongoing
logging of their rainforest homes at the corporate headquarters
of International Forest Products, Western Forest Products and
MacMillan Bloedel. The three logging giants are responsible for
50 per cent of all logging in Canada's rainforest, causing the
destruction of critical bear habitat (1).

Today the bears delivered eviction notices to the logging
companies asking them to leave the rainforest, and carried signs
that read "Clearcutting kills rainforest bears", while sounds of
chainsaws and bear growls accompanied the march. Grizzly bears
are already listed as vulnerable to extinction by the federal
and provincial governments. The rare white Spirit bear is
similarly threatened, due to planned logging in much of its
territory.

"Habitat destruction is the leading cause of extinction, and yet
these companies continue to destroy the rainforest these bears
and hundreds of other species call home," said Gavin Edwards of
Forest Action Network. 

The logging companies plan to log or build roads into virtually
all the remaining old-growth rainforest valleys within the next
10 years, including much of the best remaining rainforest bear
habitat in North America. 

"The survival of Canada's rainforest bears is at stake," said
Karen Mahon of Greenpeace. "In order to protect the bears and
the other rainforest species we are demanding a moratorium on
logging in the remaining pristine rainforest valleys."

The protest is the first public demonstration since last week's
activist training that was sponsored by five B.C. environmental
groups: Forest Action Network, People's Action for Threatened
Habitat, Friends of Clayoquot Sound, Bear Watch and Greenpeace.

"What we do in the next five years may well determine whether
Grizzlies and Spirit Bears continue to roam Canada's rainforest
in the future," said Diana Wilson of Bear Watch.

CALL BEARS AND ENVIRONMENTALISTS ON-SITE: 604-220-7701, or 313-
0159

NOTE TO EDITORS: Bears can serve as an "umbrella" species for
many of the other plants and animals which share their
rainforest habitat.  What this means is that, because bears are
the largest and widest ranging of rainforest species, if enough
wilderness is conserved to preserve healthy populations of
bears, there is a good chance of protecting healthy populations
of many other species as well.
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