Just hanging around... our activists shut down a paper mill that was busy pulping the rainforest.
After building dams and shutting down bulldozers to prevent further deforestation, the team at the Climate Defenders Camp in Indonesia has swung into action once more. At dawn, climbers entered a huge pulp and paper mill in Sumatra and scaled the massive loading cranes, blocking operations at the mill.
As I write, the latest reports are that three teams of climbers have been removed and detained, while a fourth remains in place on one of the cranes. In keeping with earlier reactions to the Climate Defenders, they've been threatened and intimidated but they're still holding out.
The paper mill is a prime target, owned as it is by APP, a subsidiary of agribusiness giant Sinar Mas, a company which is also up to its elbows in deforestation for palm oil. Twitpic photos such as this one taken from the top of the cranes show just how mind-bogglingly big this mill is and its role in the ongoing destruction of the rainforest becomes clear.
The mill is fed with timber from around the Kampar peninsula (location of the camp itself), where the rich peatland forests store truly colossal quantities of carbon. As the activists were setting up on the cranes, they spotted huge barges passing by laden with timber which has been identified as coming from natural forest and not one of the many plantations in the region. Not that it would have been much better if it had been plantation wood from the area, given that rainforest has been cleared to establish plantations in the first place, releasing all that carbon in the process.
The activists have no doubt been spurred on by the recent news that their previous spot of direct intervention has shown impressive results. After shutting down APRIL (the other pulp and paper giant tearing up Sumatra's forests) a couple of weeks ago, the Indonesian forest ministry has suspended the company's operations in Kampar, pending an investigation into their permits.
This is an amazing result and makes the harassment and deportations easier to bear, but of course the real focus for today's activities are the need for credible political action to stop deforestation in Indonesia and the imminent climate negotiations in Copenhagen An agreement on international funding and finance mechanisms to help rainforest nations protect their natural assets will be a central plank of any successful deal coming out of the Danish capital. Only 11 days to go...
In the meantime, up-to-the-nanosecond news from the paper mill is coming through on @greenpeace's Twitter feed.
