Santa's forests being destroyed - Christmas might be cancelled

Santa Claus press release Dec. 22, 2006

Huge clearcuts are being done right now in the ancient forests of Savukoski, Finnish Lapland. Santa Claus and his helpers who live at nearby Korvatunturi fjall are deeply depressed over the destruction of their home forests. It is now very likely that Christmas as we know it will be cancelled this year.

- We have not been able to work as hard as we should have, confirms Santa himself.
- There has been continuous disturbance by harvesters and timber trucks here. It has taken our motivation for our work and made us very sad.

- It looks really bad for the Christmas this year. We will for sure have to skip many homes and I am not sure if we can get on the road at all, says Santa almost with a tear in his eye.

Santa, his wife and the elves have already started to plan moving from Finland. They have been visiting the wilderness areas in Russia and Canada. There are still some large areas left where it is possible to prepare Christmas in peace without heavy logging machinery and forest destruction next door.

State owned logging company Metsähallitus started massive clearcuts in the last unprotected large intact forest areas in November. This means systematic destruction of these priceless forests in order to prevent the protection plans. These loggings are not even economically sound: very low productive ancient forests are being trashed and taken to Stora Enso pulp mill in Kemijärvi.
- They are cooking 500 year old, unique pine trees for pulp, it is outrageous, says Santa.
- These forests have a tremendeous importance for reindeer herding, tourism and other local uses. Not to mention the biodiversity values and the beautiful views, sighs Santa.

Some elves have in fact started a strike and they are delivering leaflets about the situation on the streets on Friday.

At the web page www.forestinfo.fi/forestlapland you can see these forests and loggings for yourself. There are a lot of photos and information of these areas. At the Finnish pages www.forestinfo.fi/metsalappi even more data.

FURTHER INFORMATION:
Santa Claus, joulun.ukko( @ )gmail.com

UPM & Indonesia - 9 years of rainforest destruction

The Finnish-based forest giant UPM continues co-operation with APRIL, the notorious Singapore-based pulp & paper company. The operations of APRIL's pulp & paper mill in the state of Riau (Sumatra, Indonesia) are based on raw material from the Sumatran rainforests.

The co-operation begun in 1997, when UPM entered an alliance with APRIL. UPM is still one of APRIL's main clients. Moreover, APRIL holds a USD 121 million loan from UPM. The collateral of the loan is a share of APRIL's pulp mill in Riau. APRIL is paying the loan back to UPM by supplying UPM's fine paper mill in China by pulp from the Riau pulp mill.

The loan and the supply contract are due on December 31, 2006. The loan has been extended already several times. It remains unclear whether the pulp deal will continue after this year.

The forest co-ordinator Zulfahmi from Indonesian NGO Jikalahari has been working for years in order to prevent rainforest destruction by APRIL.
- UPM is financing APRIL and using its pulp, so it has to bear responsibility for these actions. UPM should not buy pulp from APRIL as long as APRIL continues clearing rainforests, states Zulfahmi.

APRIL continues getting new forest concessions. For instance in the Kampar Peninsula, in the east coast of Sumatra, the company tries to acquire some 200 000 hectares of peat swamp forest. The peninsula - the total forest cover of which is some 400 000 hectares - is one of the largest lowland forests in western Indonesian and an important habitat of the critically endangered Sumatran tiger.

Jikalahari has proposed a national park for the Kampar peninsula.
- The biggest threat to the area are the logging plans of APRIL. The Kampar peninsula is far too valuable area to be destructed for short term interests of a pulp company, says Zulfahmi.

Zulfahmi visited Finland as a guest of Friends of the Earth Finland in late March. The annual general meeting of UPM was held on March 22.

• Jikalahari: Survey of forest quality, flora & fauna, and peat soils in Kampar Peninsula and Padang Island forest areas, Riau, Sumatra
• The Jikalahari website
• Friends of the Earth Finland website
  

Malahvia: State enterprise destroys Natura 2000 -protection area

The Finnish state owned logging company Metsähallitus again started logging the Malahvia wilderness area in late March this year despite complaints and protests by the locals and NGOs.

Malahvia old-growth forest area is situated in north-eastern Finland, by the Russian border. The forest area, some 4000 hectares, includes unditched bogs, streams, lakes and ponds. Rare and declining, wood-dependant plant and animal species are common in Malahvia. Some of the species that make their home in the Malahvia forest are already endangered and still more are about to become endangered. Malahvia is partly protected in the Natura 2000 -programme.

The dispute of the fate of Malahvia started already in the last century. Since then, negotiations and loggings have been on and off. In spring 2003, a little over 3000 people sent letters to the three biggest customers of Metsähallitus - Stora Enso, UPM and M-Real - asking the companies not to buy pulp and timber coming from this forest destruction. It helped for that year, but now the logging continues.

Metsähallitus justifies the logging in the Natura 2000 -protection area by saying it is for scientific purposes, that the aim is to mimic the effects of natural disasters like storms and forest fires in a natural forest. The NGOs claim that this sounds like "scientific whaling": there is no such a storm that delivers the logs from the forest to a pulp mill. The already rare natural forests should be left outside logging, and the effects of forestry and also forest restoration should be researched in managed forests.

Activists from the Finnish Nature League and Greenpeace demonstrated against the logging in the logging site in Malahvia. Metsähallitus then called the police to guard the destruction of this valuable forest. Two activists were fined, and the logging continued.

• Malahvia update 2003 by BirdLife
• Cyberaction to save Malahvia 2003 & background information
• Photos from Malahvia logging 2006

Suomenkieliset kuulumiset uudessa osoitteessa

Suomenkieliset metsäkuulumiset ovat muuttaneet ja löytyvät osoitteesta http://metsauutiset.blogspot.com/.

Sinne pääsee myös oikean sarakkeen linkistä.

* * *

From now on, this address is for the English language forest news. The news in Finnish can be found at http://metsauutiset.blogspot.com/.

Peurakaira @ Kiasma 1.4.

Peurakaira vs. Päätehakkuu?

Saturday April 1 @ 2 pm @ Kiasma-theatre, Helsinki.
Free entrance.

An audiovisual performance by Kirmo Kivelä (FI), Matti Snellman (FI), Pertti Jääsaari (FI), Hannu Paju (FI). A work-in-progress which will have its first show for the audience at Pikseliähky 2006. The performance is based on photographic material from the Peurakaira region in Northern Finland. The ancient forests of Peurakaira are threatened by logging, a topic which is currently under a legal dispute between Finnish State forestry enterprise Metsähallitus and the Lapin Paliskunta (Lappi reindeer herding co-operative).

• www.peurakaira.fi