When the Boreal Forest is degraded by logging, both the climate and the forest face dramatic consequences.
Greenpeace is urging supporters to keep up pressure on logging giant AbitibiBowater to end logging in the last intact stands of Boreal Forest. AbitibiBowater refuses to protect the Boreal Forest despite repeated claims that they are taking sustainability more seriously.
We hope that with a growing chorus of voices demanding protection of the vital Boreal ecosystems, they will start to listen.
AbitibiBowater controls the largest areas of public forest land in Québec and Ontario, and therefore has an important duty to preserve the remaining intact stands.
Important: This call is not free and you may be charged long distance calling rates, depending on where you live.
AbitibiBowater Headquarters: 1 514-875-2160
If you don't get a receptionist, press 0 and leave a message.
All of the most recent science supports the need to protect intact forest ecosystems to maintain biodiversity and stabilize the world's climate. The latest caribou science suggests much larger protected areas than what currently exists are needed to save the threatened species from extinction by the middle of the century.
Recently, in the prominent scientific journal Nature, a study was published that investigated the significance of old growth forests as carbon sinks. This study challenges the conventional wisdom that old growth forests are carbon neutral. The study contradicts what many in industry and government have been saying about how old growth forests actually contribute carbon to the atmosphere, largely through decomposition. The most recent science, including our recent Greenpeace report Turning up the Heat: Global Warming and the Degradation of Canada's Boreal Forest shows that Old growth forests continue to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and mitigate climate change for hundreds of years. The conclusion of the Nature study and our report is that we need to protect and maintain old growth systems intact as an important strategy for mitigating climate change.
Take Action Now!
We are strongly encouraging Greenpeace supporters to call AbitibiBowater headquarters right now and tell them you want an end to logging in intact Boreal forests and a strategy to start moving towards more permanent protection.
Send a message that AbitibiBowater must make significant inroads in protection. AbitibiBowater controls the largest tracts of publicly owned forest in Québec and Ontario, a total of 24 million hectares. As it logs these areas, it does very little to protect them. In fact, less than 3 percent of the land under AbitibiBowater's management is protected from logging in Québec, and less than 6 percent in Ontario. These numbers are confirmed by data from the independent satellite mapping organization Global Forest Watch Canada.
Sample Phone Message
Consider using the statements below for your phone call:
- I am calling from [your country, your city] to support Greenpeace's work compelling AbitbiiBowater to end destructive logging in the Boreal Forest.
- AbitibiBowater says their "new" company wants to take sustainability seriously but actions speak louder than words and their company is involved in the same old forest destruction.
- I will be pressuring some of your major customers to temporarily suspend their purchases from AbitibiBowater until such a time as AbitbiBowater stops destroying intact forests.
- AbitibiBowater must commit to certifying ALL of its forest operations to the Forest Stewarship Council (FSC) certification, not just a small percentage.
- As a supporter of Greenpeace, I know the organization to prefer collaboration, cooperation and joint solutions to confrontation
- We need more protected intact forests in Ontario and Quebec
- Logging is occurring right now and tens of thousands of hectares of intact forest and caribou habitat are being destroyed.
- For the sake of the planet and the climate, stop logging intact forests
The more phone calls AbitibiBowater gets, the stronger the message will be that logging intact forests is unacceptable.
Call AbitibiBowater - 1 514-875-2160
Let us know how your call wentSend an e-mail to kim.fry@greenpeace.org
Greenpeace activists occupied the Montréal headquarters of logging company AbitibiBowater. The activists chained themselves to the entranceway doors and are currently disrupting day-to-day operations of the newsprint multinational. They are protesting AbitibiBowater’s ongoing destruction of the Boreal Forest.
Once again this year, AbitibiBowater continues to log in the last intactstands of the Boreal Forest, and it has no plans to change itspractices. From Greenpeace's standpoint, AbitibiBowater is simplyrefusing to protect the Boreal Forest.
While activists are disrupting day-to-day activities at AbitibiBowater headquarters, other volunteers are demonstrating peacefully outside the company's building, handing out newspapers bearing the headline "AbitibiBowater refuses to protect the Boreal Forest."
TAKE ACTION Help protect the Boreal Forest!
Send a loud and clear message to David Paterson, CEO of AbitibiBowater, and his Vice President of Sustainability, Denis Leclerc,.
Tell David Paterson that as head of the company controlling the largest areas of public forest land in Québec and Ontario, it is his duty to preserve the remaining intact stands.
Protecting intact forests preserves ecosystems vital to maintaining biodiversity, saves threatened species such as woodland caribou and helps stabilize the world's climate.
Take Action Now!
Abitibibowater refuses to protect the Boreal Forest
We are engaging in peaceful civil disobedience today to protest AbitibiBowater's destruction of the Boreal Forest and its awful record as responsible corporate citizen.
The company controls the largest tracts of publically owned forest in Québec and Ontario, a total of 24 million hectares.
As it logs these vast areas, AbitibiBowater does very little to preserve intact areas. In fact, less than 3 percent of the land under AbitibiBowater's management is protected from logging in Québec, and less than 6 percent in Ontario. These numbers are confirmed by data from the independent satellite mapping organization Global Forest Watch Canada.
Green Wash? No thanks!
For AbitibiBowater to become a leader in sustainable development it will require extensive action over millions of hectares of threatened forest. In Greenpeace's view, AbitibiBowater cannot improve its sustainability record simply through minor changes or isolated environmental measures.
AbitibiBowater have refused to defer logging in intact forests and in the habitat of woodland caribou. Paterson's company refuses to work to protect these areas permanently.
Protecting intact forests preserves ecosystems vital to maintaining biodiversity, saves threatened species and helps stabilize the world's climate. It is for this very reason that Greenpeace continues to denounce the forestry practices of AbitibiBowater and its mediocre record on sustainability.
Greenpeace is also enlisting the support of citizens, along with customers and shareholders of the company, in Québec and around the world, to force AbitibiBowater to become a more responsible corporate citizen.
Greenpeace has been pressuring the Québec logging company since the publication of the report Consuming Canada's Boreal Forest in August 2007. Before checking out the timeline of Greenpeace's activities targeting the newsprint multinational, take action and send a message to AbitibiBowater president, David J. Paterson.
Greenpeace's Demands of Abitibibowater
- Suspend all logging in intact forest areas.
- Identify zones of ecological importance, including woodland caribou habitat, and work with governments and NGOs to create a network of protected areas that include these zones.
- Certify all operations including mills and product line to the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) standard - a mark of responsible forestry.
- Commit to not pursuing new licenses in previously unallocated areas of the forest.
- Inform, involve and gain the consent of First Nations peoples before logging on their traditional lands.
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Executive summary:
Executive summary
Canada’s Boreal Forest is dense with life. Richly populated with plants, birds, animals, and trees; home to hundreds of communities; and a wellspring of fresh water and oxygen, the Boreal has long been recognized as a critically important ecosystem. But as rising temperatures threaten to destabilize the planet, the potential of the Boreal’s carbon-rich expanses to mitigate global warming continues to be underestimated.
Based in part on a comprehensive review of scientific literature by researchers at the University of Toronto1, this report examines the complex relationship between global warming and Canada’s Boreal Forest. It finds that the intact areas of the Boreal are not only actively helping to slow global warming, but are also helping the forest itself to resist and recover from global warming impacts. These unfragmented areas are also helping trees, plants, and animals to migrate and adapt in response to changing climate conditions.
At the same time, however, it finds that logging is destabilizing the Boreal Forest in ways that may exacerbate both global warming and its impacts. The forest products industry and government regulators adamantly deny that logging in Canada’s Boreal affects the climate. But research shows that when the forest is degraded through logging and industrial development, massive amounts of greenhouse gasses are released into the atmosphere, and the forest becomes more vulnerable to global warming impacts like fires and insect outbreaks. In many cases, these impacts cause even more greenhouse gasses to be released, driving a vicious circle in which global warming degrades the Boreal Forest, and Boreal Forest degradation advances global warming. If left unchecked, this could culminate in a catastrophic release of greenhouse gasses known as “the carbon bomb”.
For these reasons, the report concludes that greenhouse gas emissions must be drastically reduced and that intact areas of Canada’s Boreal Forest must be protected—for the sake of the forest, and for the sake of the climate.
Num. pages: 58