It was a landmark victory in the forest debate worldwide. When a Canadian logging giant announced a phasing-out of its clearcut operations, the industry - and the forest - seemed poised on the edge of a new era. But it wasn't all good news for the woods

Greenpeace has welcomed the decision by MacMillan Bloedel to phase out its clearcut logging activities in the Canadian province of British Columbia and will continue to work with - and put pressure on - the company to ensure all its logging plans protect the integrity of pristine ancient forest areas.

It was a defining moment in a truly international campaign - a campaign which has already called upon members of Greenpeace and the Nuxalk First Nation to face jail terms in Canada in defence of the Great Bear Rainforest. In Switzerland, protesters duly caged a prisoner outside the Canadian embassy. In Sweden, a banner suggested the truth could not be jailed. Parallel protests took place in Belgium, Spain, New Zealand and the UK. At ports in the Netherlands and the USA, the lumber freighter Saga Wind was the subject of Greenpeace actions to protest against destruction of the rainforest in Canada. And above Niagara Falls, a banner reminded neighbouring nations that America buys almost two-thirds of Canadian rainforest timber.

Message understood
In Germany, action by Greenpeace centred on the Frankfurt plant of Clariant, a major buyer of pulp from British Columbia. At Canada's embassy in Bonn, meanwhile, young protesters from across Germany presented their demands for an end to clearcut logging and displayed a 200-metre rope hung with hand-painted banners. The idea of creating banners in support of the Great Bear rainforest has been taken up by young people in countries around the world.

"...it may be that MacBlo's rivals will be criticized for failing to pick up on what was so obvious to an outsider, namely that in Europe and the U.S., there is a growing market for wood products stamped with an environmental seal of approval."
Vaughn Palmer, Vancouver Province

As the children paint, the market increasingly rejects the destruction of Canada's rainforest by intransigent logging companies. Business now taking up positions against the purchase of clearcut wood from the pristine rainforest valleys of British Columbia include Nike, 3M, FedEx, B&Q, HomeBase, Do-It-All, Magnet, Knauf, Schwank and Lenzing. In a full-page advertisement taken out in the New York Times at the end of the year, Greenpeace was able to add Union Stationers and Kinko's - the world's biggest photocopying chain - to a growing list of organisations who renounce the use of timber from ancient forest destruction.

The message, already received at MacMillan Bloedel, is beginning to hit home at other major loggers in Canada. Interfor and Doman have both agreed short-term moratoria on logging in some of the remaining pristine rainforest valleys of British Columbia.

From Russia with love
In Leningrad, meanwhile, a further significant repositioning. Satellite mapping and on-the-ground verification of forest shrinkage by Greenpeace has helped persuade the Svetogorsk pulp and paper giant to phase out entirely its consumption of ancient forest timber. Finnish companies Enso and UPM Kymmene have since agreed not to take wood from any of the ancient forest areas mapped by Greenpeace in European Russia.

Elsewhere, Greenpeace bore witness to devastating forest fires in the Amazon and in Indonesia. Fires also raged in the forests of Guatemala and Malaysia. In Brazil, a decision to extend for two years a ban on mahogany licences in the Amazon received a cautious welcome. Despite the absence of a world market, the ban fails to protect the rainforest timber from a flourishing illegal, internal trade.

In Chile, seventeen Greenpeace activists were charged with public order offences after protesting against concessions granted to US corporation Trillium to log ancient forests in Tierra del Fuego. In the Yunga region of Argentina, Greenpeace has campaigned for best possible practice in respect of a 70km pipeline under construction by the gas authority. The project targets the country's most biodiverse rainforest - domain of the last jaguar population and ancestral home of the Kolla aboriginal people.