Doman Industries Lumber Ships are Causing Rainforest
Destruction
8/23/97
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Headline: Doman Industries Lumber Ships are Causing
Rainforest Destruction
Source: Greenpeace
Date: 8/23/97
GREENPEACE MARKS DOMAN LUMBER SHIP HEADING FOR EUROPE AS
RAINFOREST DESTROYER Ship exporting B.C. jobs and
rainforest destruction, GP says.
COWICHAN BAY, B.C. 21 August, 1997 -- Today Greenpeace
activists "tagged" the Saga Wind, a ship carrying wood
products clearcut by Doman Industries, with the word
'CLEARCUT' circled with a slash through it. The marking is
intended to alert Americans and Europeans that the wood
products they purchase from Doman Industries, the parent
company of Western Forest Products, come from the
clearcutting of Canada's old-growth rainforest.
The marking is also intended to remind British Columbians
that B.C.'s logging industry primarily exports unfinished
wood products out of the province.
Other Greenpeace members in inflatables stretched a banner
across the bow of the Saga Wind warning that THIS SHIP
EXPORTS RAINFOREST DESTRUCTION. The ship is carrying
approximately 50,000 cubic metres of pulp and dimensional
lumber, for export to the United States and Europe.
"We're marking this ship because people have a right to know
that when they buy wood from Doman they're buying into the
destruction of B.C.'s rainforest," said Gavin Edwards,
Greenpeace forest campaigner. "Right now, in the absence of
a clear eco-labelling system, there's absolutely no way they
could know that these products come to them at the expense
of our rainforest and the expense of B.C. jobs."
Despite recent efforts to invest more money in value-added
manufacturing, the logging industry in British Columbia
employs fewer people per cubic metre of wood cut than many
other jurisdictions.
"Our government's primary commitment is to maintain an
economy based on high-volume exports, not one based on
value-added industries. That's why we see the export of pulp
rather than paper, and dimensional lumber instead of
finished products," said Tamara Stark, Greenpeace Canada
forests campaigner. "That's bad news for British Columbians,
and bad news for B.C.'s rainforest." B.C.'s logging
industry employs only one person per 1,000 cubic metres of
wood cut, compared to a U.S. national average of three jobs
for the same amount of wood, while California manages to
derive 5 jobs. Meanwhile only 6 per cent of Forest Renewal
B.C. spending is committed to value-added initiatives in
B.C. According to a report published by the Select Standing
Committee on Forests, Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources,
"Lumber Remanufacturing in British Columbia", value-added
manufacturing creates an additional 4.55 jobs compared to
the one job created in direct logging.
Greenpeace is calling for: an additional investment in
value- added manufacturing; an end to clearcutting
throughout the rainforest; and a moratorium on logging in
the remaining intact rainforest valleys.