ACTION ALERT

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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

Virtual Blockade of Canadian Timber Company Begins

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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises

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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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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

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