GREENPEACE RELEASES "RAINFOREST RAVAGERS" DOCUMENTING CORPORATE DESTRUCTION OF THE RAINFOREST

Vancouver, BC. August 13th, 1996

Greenpeace today released a report documenting the control and destruction of Canada's temperate rainforests by 10 large timber companies. At a press conference today in Vancouver, Greenpeace announced that it is launching an international campaign to protect the temperate rainforests, expanding their work from Clayoquot Sound to the coast of British Columbia.

"One half of the world's temperate rainforest have already been destroyed and unless we take action now within the next 10 years most of Canada's rainforest will be clearcut or suffer serious ecological damage through fragmentation and roadbuilding," said Greenpeace forests campaigner Karen Mahon.

The Greenpeace report documents the control of Canada's temperate rainforests by timber corporations and summarises that three companies (MacMillan Bloedel, Interfor and Doman/Western Forest Products) control 50 per cent of the logging of Canada's temperate rainforests. The top 10 companies control 75 per cent of rainforest logging.

According to the companies' development plans, logging or roading is scheduled to occcur in over half of the approximate 50 rainforest valleys that are currently unlogged within the next five years.

"In the Amazon, a place of global concern, only 15 per cent of the rainforest has been lost. In Canada we have already lost 50 per cent of our old growth rainforest and the rest is disappearing at an incredible rate," said Tamara Stark of Greenpeace Canada. "Temperate rainforests are an endangered ecosystem and we must take decisive action now if we are preserve them for the future."

Greenpeace is calling for an immediate moratorium on logging in the remaining pristine rainforest areas, and an immediate end to clearcutting and roadbuilding in the temperate rainforest. In the longer term Greenpeace is seeking a phase-out of industrial logging in the remaining old growth rainforests, with a shift to logging secondary forests according to ecological principles.

Greenpeace is launching an international campaign to protect the temperate rainforest. The campaign will consist of community work, lobbying, tracking and publicizing rainforest products in the marketplace and public protests.

For the past week Greenpeace has been engaged in blockades against the Haida Brave, MacMillan Bloedel's log barge. MacMillan Bloedel is currently pursuing a lawsuit and civil injunction to prevent further Greenpeace protests.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:

Karen Mahon and Tzeporah Berman onboard the Moby Dick: ++604 329 2991

Tamara Stark and Patrick Anderson at Greenpeace Canada: ++ 604 924 0283.

BACKGROUNDER

The Rainforest Ravagers: Canadian Temperate Rainforest Under Siege

The Facts

• 50% of the worlds' temperate rainforests have already been destroyed
  
  
• British Columbia is home to 25% of the world's remaining temperate rainforests
  
  
• new satellite mapping is revealing that 50% of British Columbia's temperate rainforest has already been destroyed
  
  
• within the next 10 years most of the remaining old growth temperate rainforest in British Columbia will be clearcut logged or fragmented by roading
  
  
• 3 companies in British Columbia (MacMillan Bloedel, Interfor, Doman/Western Forest Products) control 50% of the wood cut in Canada's temperate rainforests
  
  
• 10 companies control 77 percent of the rainforest cut
  
  
• in many regions up to 90% of the revenue generated by the logging leaves the local community