Good News from Karelian Greenbelt
7/15/97
*******************************
RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Headline: Good News from Karelian Greenbelt
Source: "greenbase"
Date: 7/15/97
Author: nobody@xs2.greenpeace.org in cdp:gp.press **
Good news from Karelian Greenbelt? -
UPM -Kymmene joins old growth moratorium
Stepanov wants to halt NGOs
Helsinki, June 12, 1997 --- UPM-Kymmene has joined the logging moratorium
in Russian Green Belt old growth forests. UPM-Kymmene declared their
decision in a negotiation with Russian and Finnish NGOs on Wednesday June
11, after receiving "forest quartal level" maps of Karelian and Murmansk
regions old growth forests.
"UPM-Kymmene shows they are quite clever when they have not needed such a
campaign as Enso did to come to this conclusion," said Sergey Tsyplenkov of
Greenpeace Russia.
Enso was the first Finnish pulp and paper company to agree on a logging
moratorium of Greenbelt old growth areas. This happened October 1996, after
Enso had been object of a campaign of environmental organizations
throughout Europe.
Finnish forest industry still purchases timber from areas that
environmental organizations consider irreplaceable for the biodiversity.
Earlier in May Vainionpaa sawmill, with it's marketing companies Eurohonka
and Martinniemen saha, was exposed having logging operations in the
proposed Kalevala national park area. The clearcutting of those pristine
wilderness areas continues today, even that premier Viktor Stepanov of
Karelia has promised the logging will stop. The logging of the projected
protection area is illegal because of the protection proposal decided by
the Kostamus town January 15 1997. Authority of the town is based on
legislations about environment and the about local administration's
authority.
UPM-Kymmene has also expressed its support to the Greenbelt protection plan
on Finnish side of the Finnish-Russian border. In their memo of 26 May 1997
UPM-Kymmene promised not to log those old growth forests in Finland which
will be under protection considerations as a part of the Greenbelt.
Enso has also developed their approach how to continue the moratorium, if
the Karelian government is not able to organise the protection. Enso has
develop three scenarios for future:
1. All stakeholders including NGOs will be involved in the inventory
process. The criteria of the old-growth forests will be agreed by all the
participants and the old-growth areas will be defined together. - Enso will
exclude the negotiated forests areas out of loggings. The loggings outside
these areas will be continued.
2. All stakeholders including NGOs will be involved in the inventory
process, but no agreement concerning criteria and exact areas will be
found. - Enso will continue moratorium as long as an agreement will be
accepted by all the stakeholders.
3. Not all the stakeholders will be involved (for example, NGOs will be not
invited) or the working group will be not organized. - Enso will continue
moratorium infinitely.
The inventory process was recently jeopardised by a letter addressed to the
Russian federal government and written by the chairman of the government of
the Karelian Republic Mr. Viktor Stepanov. In his letter Mr. Stepanov asked
federal government to "apply adequate actions to halt improper activities
of nongovernental environmental organisations in Karelia and entire
Russia."
"We are not sure if we can continue the old growth forest inventory, since
it's very easy for Mr. Stepanov to provoke real conflicts by applying
`adequate actions' and create real problems for our work," said Dimitri
Aksenov from Biodiversity Concervation Center.