Greenpeace Activists
with faces painted like tigers protest inside
the International Pulp and Paper Awards
in Brussels November 16th, where they awarded
the 'Golden Chainsaw 2010' to Asia Pulp
and Paper (APP) for 30 years of forest destruction.
Greenpeace published
a report in July showing how the last wild
Sumatran tigers are threatened with extinction
by the practices of Indonesia's biggest
pulp and paper producer, Asia Pulp and Paper,
(APP). We thought that was reason enough
to give APP a ‘Golden Chainsaw Award’ to
mark the International Pulp and Paper Awards
in Brussels. No applause please.
The tigers' natural
habitat in the Bukit Tigapuluh National
Park is sandwiched between the concessions
of the world's fourth largest paper producer.
Several natural forests around the park
are doomed to disappear in favour of acacia
plantations.
In spite of this, APP
insists it is very much on the path to sustainability.
The sharp contrast with its practices in
the field are reason enough to question
the responsibility of APP - Sinar Mas' pulp
and paper producing department.
Peatlands are one of
the world’s most critical carbon stores
and a key defense against climate change.
The destruction of rainforests and carbon-rich
peatlands in they key reason why Indonesia
is the world's third largest emitter of
greenhouse gases. The palm oil and pulp
and paper industries are two of the major
drivers of these escalating emissions. Moreover,
it is illegal in Indonesia to dig peat that
is more than three metres' deep, not that
Sinar Mas takes notice.
More than enough arguments
to build on our Chinese colleagues’ protest
last month and to award APP another golden
chainsaw for the deforestation it has wreaked
upon Indonesia. The International Pulp and
Paper Awards in Brussels was the perfect
occasion to put APP in the spotlight. See
below how our Greenpeace tigers managed
this:
Let's hope APP is getting
the message. The fact that we have a long
way to go is obvious from the recent statements
of Aida Greenbury, APP's Director of Sustainability
and Stakeholder Engagement. My English colleague
Ian showed in a razor sharp analysis there
is still a lot of work to do.
If APP is really serious
about sustainability, it will put its proof
on the table and have it checked by independent
experts. Most importantly, it would commit
to a moratorium on further clearance of
natural forests and carbon-reach peatland
in Indonesia.
+ More
Protecting Europe’s
last remaining lowland forest
The last remaining European
lowland forest can be found at the junction
of two countries: Poland and Belarus. The
Bialowieska Forest is all that remains of
an ancient forest that once stretched between
the Ural Mountains and Spain. A lowland
forest refers to forest growing at low elevations,
typically having many tiers of canopy, growing
taller and more diverse than forest at higher
elevations. The value of the Bialowieska
lowland forest has been recognized by UNESCO,
which has included it in The World Heritage
list. Today the eight thousand-year-old
ecosystem has been shrunk to 800 square
kilometres, out of which the Belarusian
part is a National Park and the remaining
17% lies within Polish borders. Every year
in the Polish part of the forest 100,000
trees were cut down, meaning the whole ecosystem
was gradually being destroyed. Thanks to
a Greenpeace Poland campaign this extraordinary
region stands a better chance of being preserved.
Last week Greenpeace
Poland submitted a civil initiative to the
Polish parliament bearing over 240,000 signatures.
Its goal is to introduce changes to the
environmental act. The current law allows
local authorities to veto any expansion
plan of the existing National Park as well
as creating a new one. This is precisely
the problem with the Bialowieska Forest
that makes it impossible for yet another
minister of the environment to take action.
What can help the situation is changing
the environmental act so that the final
decision will be made by the minister of
the environment after having held consultations
with the local authorities, NGOs and scientists.
Polish law gives the
possibility to its citizens to submit a
bill to the parliament, provided that within
three months they are able to collect 100,000
signatures in support of the initiative.
Greenpeace initiated its campaign in August,
after a group of activists had climbed the
roof of the Ministry of the Environment
and hung a banner reading: “I love Puszcza”
– “I love the Forest”. The response that
was evoked exceeded our expectations – we
have collected twice as many signatures
as were required! That is a great success
of the civil society and a clear signal
to the politicians who cannot remain indifferent
to almost 250,000 voices of those who supported
the project. Now, the bill will be submitted
to the parliament where the members of parliament
have three months for the first reading
to take place.
It is estimated that
there are around 20,000 species of animals
living in the Bialowieska Forest, including
bison, wolf and lynx, and the logging of
Bialowieska Forest definitely affects them.
This has been shown by research carried
out on a population of endangered woodpecker
which demonstrated considerable population
loss over the past nineteen years. Scientists,
carrying out research in the Bialowieska
Forest, warn us that by cutting down this
natural forest we are losing a vast biological
laboratory. Nowhere else in Europe can such
unique evolutionary processes be observed.
That is why 240,000 Polish citizens signed
on to support the “I love Puszcza” campaign
and called on their government to act to
protect one of Europe’s last remaining ancient
and diverse woodland areas. Now the Polish
government must make the wishes of its people
into law and ensure the preservation of
Bialowieska Forest is permanent.
