NEWS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tue, Nov., 23'93
CANADIAN ENVIROS GET TOUGH WITH MITSUBISHI
Mark Wareing of the Western Canada Wilderness Society, Colleen McCrory
of the Valhalla Wilderness Society, and Garth Lenz of the Friends of
Clayoquot Sound met with Kyosuke Mori, Mitsubishi's General Manager
for Environmental Affairs, and other executives during a two-hour
meeting at the Japanese megacorporation's Tokyo headquarters. They
told executives of the corporation that the boycott of their company
will spread in the wake of it's refusal to reconsider its Northern
Alberta ALPAC project, one of the world's largest pulp mill
developments in the world.
The company is the target of an international boycott headed by the
Rainforest Action Network (RAN) because of its tropical timber trade,
and it has been under increasing fire for its destruction of temperate
and boreal forests in Alberta, British Columbia, Chile and Siberia.
Mitsubishi is involved in the controversial Alberta-Pacific Forest
Industry's (ALPAC) pulp mill in Northern Alberta, where the company
has been given rights to clearcut 2.6 million cubic meters of boreal
forest per year. The ALPAC mill began operations recently. Mitsubishi
and another Japanese paper giant, Daishowa Paper Manufacturing, have
been given logging rights which total 15% of the entire province of
Alberta, or about 63% of the forested lands. Daishowa is presently the
target of a consumer boycott in Canada because it is logging on land
claimed by the Lubicon Cree. Over the past three years the ALPAC mill
has been at the centre of widespread controversy and opposition.
Approval for the mill was granted despite a federal-provincial funded
environmental hearing which recommended that the pulp mill not be
built until several environmental problems were addressed.
McCrory called the meeting with Mitsubishi "very disappointing". "It
revealed the utter lack of concern of the Mitsubishi Corporation for
remote northern communities, for the ecology of our boreal forests,
rivers and wildlife, and for the health and survival of indigenous
peoples like the Big Stone band and the Lubicon." According to
Wareing, "It was discovered during the meeting that Mitsubishi lives
in a dream world where they think Canada has the highest standards in
the world." Said McCrory, "We will appeal to the public in Japan and
Europe regarding Daishowa and Mitsubishi-Honshu's ALPAC pulp mill. We
are urging environmental groups and the Japanese public to put
pressure on these two companies, such as by participating in an
international boycott, in order to bring about the needed changes in
Canada. These Japanese companies have been given license to log an
area of approximately 120,000 sq. km. in Northern Alberta, which is
almost half the size of the forested area left in all of Japan.
Clearcutting the traditional territory of the Lubicon and Cree people
will threaten their culture, their livelihood and their local
communities," stated McCrory. According to Yoichi Kuroda, one of
Japan's leading environmentalists, "Japan and Japan's multinationals
comprise one of the largest consumers and importers of wood in the
world. They usually purchase the highest quality wood products, which
originate from ancient forests. Japan's imports and investments are
causing major depletion of some of the most valuable ancient
old-growth and boreal forests of Canada.
For further information contact JATAN at O11-813-3770-6308