Defenders of the forest

Nearly 80 per cent of the world's large areas of ancient forest have already been destroyed. Every two seconds, a zone the size of a soccer pitch is logged or burned. Thousand-year-old trees are being felled to make toilet paper and telephone directories. The time to act is now.

Ancient forests support as much as 90 per cent of our land-based species. They provide the world with clean, fresh water and act as a crucial medicine chest for pharmaceutical advance. Many species simply won't survive without large tracts of ancient forest to sustain them. Nor will many traditional cultures.
Ancient forests also play a critical role in shaping the world's climate. When destroyed, they release huge quantities of carbon which heats up the earth's atmosphere. The 1997 fires in Indonesia, for example, added as much carbon as all the coal, oil and gas burned that year in western Europe.
In the Amazon, Greenpeace has called for urgent action to protect the ancient forest from indiscrim-inate burning - the final stage in a process of deforestation which begins with uncontrolled logging.

The logging threat
Greenpeace is working around the world to protect our ancient forest from destructive logging - its greatest threat.
In June 1997, King Island in British Columbia in Canada was the scene of large-scale arrests after a blockade by Greenpeace, the Nuxalk nation and other forest groups halted clearcut logging for 18 days. As a result of Greenpeace action here and elsewhere, logging incursions were prevented in most of the pristine ancient rainforest valleys of Canada in 1997.
Greenpeace supports first-nation cultural use of forest lands. The King Island action began at the invitation of hereditary chiefs of the Nuxalk nation. Sacred to the Nuxalk, the blockade site at Ista is part of the Great Bear Rainforest which constitutes one of the largest areas of pristine temperate rainforest left anywhere in the world.

Working to sustain
Greenpeace will continue to oppose logging of the remaining pristine rainforest valleys of British Columbia and the construction of new roads throughout the temperate rainforest while pressing for an end to clearcutting.
After a sustained Greenpeace campaign in Finland, another major Finnish-based pulp and paper company - UPM Kymmene - followed Enso's example and stopped buying ancient forest timber from Karelia in western Russia. In the Komi Republic of Russia, Greenpeace is countering cynical attempts by the local authorities to redraw the boundaries of a UNESCO World Heritage site in order to prospect for gold.
In the Solomon Islands, Greenpeace has been working with local and regional groups to develop Ecotimber, a sustainable source of tropical wood. Co-funded by Greenpeace, the New Zealand government and regional industry, Ecotimber offers New Zealand's consumers a chance to be part of a sustainable solution to the destructive logging of Melanesia.