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Tasmania's Clearcuts Ending Up as Japanese Paper (posted: 2005-3-04)
5{p://www.wilderness.org.au/campaigns/forests">Australia's Wilderness Society in 2004 stepped up its campaign against Tasmanian logging company Gunns for the latter's logging practices in old growth forests which are among the world's oldest. According to the AWS, the majority of Gunn's woodchips from old growth forests in Tasmania's forest are sold to Japanese paper makers. In co-operation with Greenpeace (in Japan and Australia), the AWS succeeded in pressuring Gunns and its Japanese customers to extent that Gunns has now launched a lawsuit against the AWS and its staffers. The world's leading NGOs have united to condemn Gunns and are urging an embargo on its produce from clear cuts in Tasmania. 
Gunns' "firebombing" of a clear cut following harvest Some Japanese customers of Gunns are responding, while some are not. Ricoh, the leading electronics company and one of Japan's leading suppliers of copy paper, according to the AWS, in April 2004 called on its paper suppliers not to use old growth Tasmanian forests in their source materials. Mitsubishi Corporation (the leading trading firm, involved in supplying Gunns' product to Japan) and its customer Mitsubishi Paper Mills have made pledges to phase out supply from old growth forests in Tasmania "as soon as possible".. Other leading customers of Gunns are Japanese paper giants Oji Paper, Nippon Paper?’??Ê??ÊDaio Paper, Chuetsu Pulp and Paper have yet to make a clear statement on whether they intend to cease purchase from Gunns. On February 23rd, 2005, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and other leading global NGOs united in their condemnation of Gunn's actions and their response to the Wilderness Society's campaign. 
Results of a clearcut, Tasmania All photos courtesy of the Australian Wilderness Society
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