Greenpeace Press Release April 1, 2009

Proposal in Stora Enso's Annual General Meeting to stop old-growth forest destruction

Finnish State Forest Enterprise Metsähallitus has once again started controversial old-growth forest logging in the forests of Finnish Lapland. Metsähallitus has recently logged old-growth forests in three areas of intact old-growth forest.

Individual shareholders propose today in Stora Enso's Annual General Meeting that the paper giant would stop sourcing wood from the intact old-growth forests of Finnish Lapland. The shareholders propose the company to save the eight most important areas of contiguous intact forest outside protected areas in Forest Lapland as defined by NGOs Greenpeace, Finnish Association for Nature Conservation and Finnish Nature League in 2006 (1).

To support the proposal Greenpeace activists hanged a 8 x 14 metres banner with the message "Stop ancient forest destruction" outside the venue in Helsinki, Finland.

In their AGM in 2007 Stora Enso announced that they stop sourcing from the forests until the manager of the forests, Metsähallitus, has inventoried the ecological values of the areas. However, Stora Enso continued procuring from the areas in less than a year although no reports on the results of the inventories had been published.

Metsähallitus has published maps of the areas and classified some of the forests raised by the NGOs as "in natural state". Logging has taken place also in these forests classified as "natural state" by the logger, and Stora Enso has sourced wood from the operations. Greenpeace identified trees from the 17th century having been felled in the operations.

"Stora Enso claimed they expect a report on the ecological values of the forests before they continue sourcing from them. Now they are buying again even though Metsähallitus has classified some of the logged forests as "natural state". What could change the policy of Stora Enso if a natural state old-growth forest is not enough? This shows that Stora Enso's so called commitment to old-growth forest protection is just words on paper", says Greenpeace forest campaigner Sini Harkki.

Less than 5% of Finnish forests are in natural state. On a European scale natural state old-growth forests are even rarer, representing only 2% of forests.

Saving the remaining intact forests would not threaten Stora Enso's wood procurement. In 2008 Stora Enso used 38,2 million cubic metres of wood. In Lapland, 10,2 million cubic metres of tree growth is used by forestry while only 1,6 million cubic metres are in protected areas. The 30,000 ha of forest land proposed to be saved represents less than 0,8% of Lapland's forest land outside protected areas.

The shareholders' proposal: http://www.storaenso.com/investors/governance/shareholders-meetings/agm2009/proposals/Documents/Proposal.pdf

For more information, please contact:
Sini Harkki, forest campaigner, Greenpeace
+358 50 582 1107 sini.harkki [at] greenpeace.org

Juha Aromaa, communications manager, Greenpeace
phone +358 50 3696 202

Satu Pitkänen, press officer, Greenpeace
phone +358 50 546 1789

More information on the forest areas
Photos from the logging operations

NOTES: (1) (1) Greenpeace, Finnish Association for Nature Conservation and Finnish Nature League published maps of the eight most important areas of contiguous intact forests in Forest Lapland in 2006. The areas include 30,000 ha of forest land outside protected areas. Thousands of findings of threatened species have been made in the forests.