Environmental activists block ship carrying newsprint
By Leah McBride Mensching, Monday 15 October 2007 at 22:24 :: Printing & Production Systems :: #699 :: rss
Greenpeace activists in the Netherlands this weekend blocked a cargo ship they said was carrying newsprint that had been made from trees cut down in old growth forests in Canada.
The environmentalists called for newspapers to not use papers made from old growth forests, and on Saturday prevented a 560-foot ship called Finnwood from unloading at Terneuzen port, 130 miles south of Amsterdam, the Associated Press reported.
According to Greenpeace, the paper on the Finnwood was from the Canadian forest products company Abitibi-Consolidated Inc., and is used by all of the major newspaper publishers in the Netherlands.
“Huge areas of forest are being destroyed for newspapers, books and toilet tissue,” said Hilde Stroot, campaign leader for Greenpeace Netherlands, according to the AP.
More than 1.7 million acres of Canadian forest, home to threatened wildlife such as wolf, caribou and lynx, are cleared every year, Stroot said.
Abitibi did not immediately return an after-hours call to its Montreal office, the AP reported.
The company's Web site states it supplies publishers in more than 70 countries with newsprint made of up to “100 percent recycled fibre.”
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