Update from actions in Finnish forests

24 February 2002

Near Oulu in northwestern Finland - We are watching some reindeer wandering between the tree stumps, hundreds of year-old trees cut down within days, their remains are buried by a dense layer of snow. Most of the wood which is piled on big log stacks will be delivered to paper companies like Storaenso, then processed to paper for newspapers and magazines or throwaway products like toilet papers for the European market.

Our Team here consists of 15 people, most of them Finnish, one Swedish, one American and myself from Germany. I am here for about two weeks, coming right from courses at the Universitz of Trier where I am studying political science, public law and Russian.

In Trier I am also working for the local Greenpeace group, campaigning for more use of recycled paper products. Here we are fighting at the other end of the "paper pipeline", blocking big logging machines from destroying more and more ancient forests and calling for better protection by the Finnish authorities.

Only five percent of the Finnish forests have remained old-growth, but less than half of it is protected by law. Once destroyed, it needs centuries for the sub-Arctic nature to grown new biologically diverse forests similar to the ones existing now. But Storaenso and their customers like major German publishing companies do not seem to care about vanishing forests. Instead the market share of recycled paper products even decreased in Germany in the last couple of years, getting replaced by paper also from here, just to print weekly magazines or disposable paper products and packaging.

Thus every German pupil has already spent as much paper as an adult in India while in Finland and other countries the ancient forests disappear faster and faster.

Jan

Ask your government to stop the destruction and help SAVE the world's remaining ancient forests.

The Rainbow Warrior is currently in France riding out the rough weather and preparing for more actions against ancient forest destruction. Find out more>

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