ACTION ALERT
Virtual Blockade of Canadian Timber Company Begins
Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises
7/26/99
OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by EE
The Forest Action Network of Canada has requested our assistance in
garnering support for their "Virtual Blockade" of West Fraser Timber
Company, which is clearcutting huge swathes of the Great Bear
Rainforest in Canada. Please respond to this appeal for letters and
email of protest, and check out their marvelous use of emerging
Internet technologies to bear witness to outrageous ecological mayhem
at http://www.fanweb.org/west_fraser/index.shtml .
g.b.
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: "VIRTUAL BLOCKADE" OF WEST FRASER TIMBER COMPANY BEGINS
IMAGES OF RAINFOREST DESTRUCTION UPLOADED DAILY VIA SATELLITE
Source: Forest Action Network
http://www.fanweb.org
Box 625, Bella Coola BC, Canada, V0T-1C0
(250) 799-5800
fax (250) 799-5830
mailto:courtney@fanweb.org
Status: Distribute freely with credit given to source
Date: July 21, 1999
Byline: Courtney Kirk
Today, the Forest Action Network (FAN) began broadcasting images via
satellite, directly from West Fraser Timber Company's logging
operations in a remote pristine valley of the Great Bear Rainforest
near the Alaskan border.
West Fraser Timber Company is continuing to blast logging roads into
the Chambers Creek watershed some 70km north of Prince Rupert. FAN's
campaign flagship, the MV Starlet, is on site where FAN activists are
equipped with digital cameras, computers and satellite communications
to let the world view for themselves the destruction caused by West
Fraser.
The Chambers Creek watershed is located north of Prince Rupert, up
Portland Inlet and off Nass Bay. Only 20% of the original, intact
valleys of the Great Bear Rainforest remain pristine. Due to
Chambers Creek's ecological importance as an intact, pristine valley,
environmental groups have asked that West Fraser stop logging in
Chambers Creek, but the company has so far refused.
West Fraser has the rights to log 16 large pristine valleys and
countless other key ecological areas in the northern part of the Great
Bear Rainforest over the next few years.
WEBSITE:
http://www.fanweb.org/west_fraser/index.shtml
Background Information:
The Forest Action Network (FAN) is a British Columbia based grassroots
organization with a network of over 1000 individuals throughout North
America and the world. Since 1993, we have been actively working to
protect the coastal temperate rainforest ecosystems in British
Columbia. Our mission is to stop the destruction of forests and forest
ecosystems. The Forest Action Network is committed to seeking an end
to industrial forestry and replacing it with ecologically sound, First
Nations and community controlled ecoforestry. FAN is the first and
only environmental NGO with a full time presence on the mid-coast of
British Columbia.
At the invitation of Head Hereditary Chief Nuximlayc, we work along
side the sovereign Nuxalk Nation in their efforts to protect their
ancestral lands in a unique and powerful alliance.
Who is West Fraser?
West Fraser Timber is the largest lumber producer in Canada, with net
sales in 1997 of $1, 869.8 million. They are a giant forest products
company that produces lumber, pulp, newsprint and other forest
products. So for example the cardboard they produce is used in boxes
by Volkswagon and BMW to package spare parts in Germany; Proctor &
Gamble make disposable products using West Fraser wood pulp; WalMart
use product packaging that originates from the Great Bear Rainforest;
Home Depot sells West Fraser lumber in their stores in the U.S.; and
Oakwood homes, the largest retailer of manufactured homes in the world
also uses West Fraser timber.
West Fraser also owns Revy Home and Garden Centers, with 49 Home
Improvement stores in Western Canada, and Lansing Build-all home
improvement stores in Ontario.
The company cut almost 4.5 million cubic meters from public lands in
British Columbia and Alberta in 1997. In addition, the company
successfully pressured the provincial government into allowing the
export of up to 1/3 of its Northern B.C. harvest as raw logs in 1999,
destined primarily for Japan, thus effectively denying employment to
local people in the region.
Why is West Fraser so bad?
West Fraser ranks among the worst and largest destroyers of Canada's
temperate and boreal forests. In 1997 West Fraser clearcut over 560
000 cubic meters of wood in the Great Bear Rainforest, with 161 449
cubic meters coming from the North Coast. They hold cutting rights to
many of the last pristine valleys on the coast.
If current plans are allowed to proceed, West Fraser will destroy 16
large pristine valleys and 4 key ecological areas in the Great Bear
Rainforest. They are currently active in one of these areas, Chambers
Creek, and intend to begin clearcut logging in six more in the next
five years. As well as destroying precious ecosystems for short-term
profit, in two years (between June 15, 1195 and June 15, 1997) West
Fraser was charged 77 times under the Forest Act and the Forest
Practices Code.
The 'Virtual Blockade'
Using our flagship the M/V Starlet, our forest campaigners are BEARING
WITNESS to the kind of destruction caused by logging companies like
WFT in remote areas otherwise inaccessible to the general public. By
taking digital images of road building and clearcut logging and
uploading these images daily on our website, we're offering the world
an unbiased view of the reality of clearcut logging in ancient forest
stands.
During a similar action in which FAN employed this tactic,
International Forest Products stopped its logging operations in the
Johnston Valley. Hence, this strategy has been dubbed a "virtual
logging blockade".
Tell West Fraser Timber Company What You Think
Drawing on the above information and the Virtual Blockade web site,
email or write letters to West Fraser's CEO:
Henry H. Ketcham, President and CEO
West Fraser Timber Co. Ltd
1000 -1100 Melville St
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, V6E 4A6.
Tel: (604) 895-2700
Fax: (604) 681-6061
e-mail: hketc@westfrasertimber.ca