Greenpeace activists on Saturday blockaded a cargo ship they claimed was carrying newsprint made from trees felled in Canadian old growth forests. The environmentalists said they were preventing the 560-foot ship Finnwood from unloading its paper cargo at Terneuzen port, 130 miles south of Amsterdam, and were daubing on its side a slogan calling for newspapers not to use paper made from old growth forests.
Hilde Stroot, campaign leader for Greenpeace Netherlands, said more than 1.7 million acres of Canadian forest — home to threatened species such as the lynx, wolf and caribou — are cleared each year. "Huge areas of forest are being destroyed for newspapers, books and toilet tissue," Stroot said.
Greenpeace said the paper on board the ship was from Canadian forest products company Abitibi-Consolidated LLC and is used by all of the Netherlands' major newspaper publishers. Abitibi did not immediately return an after hours call to its office in Montreal. The company's Web site said that its newsprint is made of up to 100 percent recycled paper, but Greenpeace claimed samples they have had tested contained up to 90 percent new wood fibers. |