## author : greenbas@web.apc.org
## date : 20.10.94
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GREENPEACE PRESS RELEASE
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>> CLAYOQUOT BLOCKADE COMES TO CALIFORNIA - California phone
company complicit in clearcutting of rainforest,
environmental groups charge
LOS ANGELES, 18 October, 1994 (GP) The US campaign to save
Clayoquot Sound is today escalating as environmental
activists from Greenpeace and Rainforest Action Network
blockade all entrances to the Los Angeles GTE plant. GTE
Directories currently purchases its paper from Canadian
logging giant MacMillan Bloedel (MB), clearcut from British
Columbia's Clayoquot Sound.
Ten activists have locked themselves to the GTE factory
gates, impeding the entry and exit of directory delivery
trucks. Included among those risking arrest are prominent
native rights activist Winona LaDuke and British Columbian
actress and activist Barbara Williams, who last year married
American Senator Tom Hayden in Clayoquot Sound. A banner
hung over the entrance reads: "No clearcut rainforests for
GTE phone books."
"GTE has to stop buying into the destruction of Clayoquot,"
said Greenpeace's Tamara Stark, one of the activists risking
arrest. "Other companies are already behaving as responsible
corporate citizens and when GTE finally does so, they won't
be the first and we're certain they won't be the last."
A coalition of U.S. and Canadian groups are demanding that
GTE stop buying pulp or paper derived from MB as long as
they continue to clearcut Clayoquot Sound. Earlier this
year, two UK companies cancelled contracts with MacMillan
Bloedel, while seven of the largest paper buyers in Germany
committed to go clearcut-free as soon as paper is available.
DeTeMedien, the German phone directory publishers
association whose 120 member companies produce 85 million
directories a year, stated on July 13 that they will no
longer purchase pulp or paper from MacMillan Bloedel. Over
the past year Greenpeace, RAN and other environmental groups
have engaged in a dialogue with GTE about their involvement
in the clearcutting of Clayoquot Sound. After numerous
letters and meetings, GTE did contract an environmental
consultant to conduct an audit of the Clayoquot situation
and MB's record in Clayoquot Sound. Although inside sources
have since revealed that the audit sided with
environmentalists and recommended that GTE no longer
purchase pulp from Clayoquot, GTE has refused to do so and
similarly refuses to make the audit public.
"Using rainforests to print Yellow Pages is about as short-
sighted as can be," said California State Senator Tom
Hayden, whose research helped to identify California's
largest B.C. paper customers. "We must demand that GTE and
Pacific Bell find alternatives to ancient rainforests as a
paper source." More than two-thirds of British Columbia's
wood exports go to the United States, where per capita paper
consumption is nearly 700 pounds a year. With California as
the largest market for B.C. wood and paper products,
activists are pressuring the state's publishers to find more
ecologically sound suppliers.
GTE, whose Los Angeles plant prints 22 million directories
annually, claims that paper is an insignificant factor in
deforestation. This is untrue. According to even MacMillan
Bloedel's conservative statistics, 25 per cent of the trees
it harvests go directly to pulp mills, with an additional
percentage from sawmill residues.
October 15-23 is World Rainforest Week, a time to focus
global attention on the rapid destruction of the world's
dwindling rainforests. The environmental community calls
upon the American people, industry and government to reduce
wood and paper consumption and demand ecologically sound
alternatives.
FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:
Atossa Soltani, RAN on site: (415) 699-3691
Tamara Stark on site, by cell phone: dial roam number
1-213-718-7626, wait for tone
and then dial 1-604-328-6527
Karen Mahon in Vancouver: (604) 253-7701
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PRESS UPDATE
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>> FOUR ARRESTED IN L.A. FOR CONCERN OVER CLAYOQUOT
(LOS ANGELES) Tuesday, 18 October, 1994 (GP) Four activists
were arrested today at a demonstration in Los Angeles,
targeting a California company's use of Clayoquot pulp to
make phone books. GTE Phone Directory currently purchases
from MacMillan Bloedel pulp derived from the clearcutting of
Clayoquot Sound. The demonstration shut down the phone
company's printing plant for five hours.
Among those arrested was Barbara Williams, Canadian actress
and wife of Senator Tom Hayden, whose research pinpointed
major US purchasers of pulp from Clayoquot Sound. Also
arrested were Winona LaDuke, prominent Native Rights
activist and member of Greenpeace's board of directors,
David Chatfield, regional director of Greenpeace in
California, and Randy Hayes, executive director of
Rainforest Action Network. The four have been charged with
trespassing.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Marc Evans, Greenpeace L.A. (310) 287-2210
Lisa Skrypichayko, Greenpeace Vancouver (604) 253-7701