Greenpeace Occupies Cargo Ship With Newsprint for L.A. Papers

Police boarded the ship Thursday, arresting 13 protesters. Four were held by police, booked on "suspicion of trespassing," according to the LA Times.

They staged the action to protest the logging of old-growth temperate rainforest on the coast of British Columbia, Canada. Much of the wood chips used to produce this newsprint where supplied by Interfor, one of the main companies logging the Great Bear Rainforest to extinction. The Great Bear Rainforest is the largest unprotected temperate rainforest in the world.

Four swimmers in survival suits with buoys reading "Save the Ancient Forests" placed themselves in front of the harbor channel entrance to prevent the ship from docking at the Long Beach pier.

Greenpeace forest issues spokesperson Marc Evans said, "Greenpeace has evidence that large quantities of wood chips from ancient coastal rainforests are being sent to the mills which provide this newsprint to California customers -- including The Los Angeles Times, GTE, AT&T and the Orange County Register."

Evans said, "We will continue occupying this ship until companies stop buying products that contribute to the destruction of the ancient forests."

Greenpeace says Interfor, a company that owns 58 logging operations in the coastal temperate rainforest of British Columbia, directly supplies wood fibers to the mill in British Columbia that produces this newsprint. Other companies cutting in this old growth forest include Doman Industries Ltd. doing business as Western Forest Products and West Fraser Timber.

In contrast, the City of Los Angeles, California based Kinkos copying shops, 3M, and large European companies such as B&Q, Europe's largest do-it-yourself chain, and the German retailer house, Otto, have all recently decided not to buy lumber, pulp or paper from ancient forests, Greenpeace says.

"Greenpeace is calling on the logging corporations ... to stop clearcutting the 20 percent of the remaining ancient forests in British Columbia," said Greenpeace Canada forest campaigner Catherine Stewart. "It is time for the forest industry to drastically reform it's forest practices toward a more sustainable and long term solution," Stewart added.

In a related protest the week before on the East Coast, Greenpeace occupied a similar cargo ship in New London, Connecticut on October 12, also carrying wood from Canada's Great Bear Rainforest.