WORLD'S LARGEST LOG BARGE OCCUPIED TO STOP RAINFOREST DESTRUCTION

1st AUGUST 1996 12:00 noon
MC CLINTON BAY, HAIDA GWAII, BRITISH COLUMBIA ,

Today on Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands) Greenpeace activists boarded and prevented further loading of the Haida Brave one of the world's largest log barges. Owned by MacMillan Bloedel, the ship is used to transport raw logs from clearcut areas of temperate rainforest to pulp and lumber mills in the south of British Columbia.

As logs were being loaded onto the Haida Brave, two Greenpeace zodiacs approached the loading operation by water, chained themselves onto the barge. The operators were forced to stop all loading procedures and responding by rocking the ship trying to shake the activists off.

"MacMillan Bloedel is tearing down these irreplaceable rainforests and shipping them out at an astonishing rate," said Tamara Stark, Greenpeace Forests Campaigner. "Greenpeace will not stand idly by and allow the last areas of pristine rainforest be destroyed."

MacMillan Bloedel currently cuts 1.2-million cubic metres of wood on Haida Gwaii each year and ships the raw logs off-island to mills in the lower mainland and Vancouver Island for processing. None of the four logging companies currently clearcutting on Haida Gwaii operate processing facilities on-island. A local community process (Island Community Stability Initiative which brings together people from Share BC, Haida First Nations and MacMillan Bloedel staff and the environmental community) has called for a 50% reduction in the volume logged annually and for dramatic tenure reform which would give the local community more control over forest management. The logs are coming from disputed land that the Haida are currently claiming through the treaty process.

"Every time the barge goes by loaded with logs, everyone knows and feels it's grand theft taking place, that it's genocide for the Haida people and a continuation of the company's and government's intentions to log off our islands for their own benefit. They take with them our past and our future. It must be stopped," said Ralph Stocker a Haida First Nations activist.

Greenpeace is vowing to stop the barge for as long as possible.

Haida Gwaii is one of the areas of concern within the temperate rainforest region. Canada's temperate rainforest stretches from South of Vancouver along the west coast to the Alaskan border and currently 96% of it is open to logging. Greenpeace is calling for a moratorium on all logging in the remaining pristine rainforest areas and for full biological and cultural assessments.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Tzeporah Berman, Greenpeace Vancouver at (604) 253-7701

or to arrange interviews with activists in Haida Gwaii

Ralph Stocker, Haida First Nation, in Masset at (604) 626-3519