Around 100 people held a peaceful demonstration in Finland this week to protest against Greenpeace‘s forest protection demands.
The protestors included forest owners, reindeer herders, sawmill and forestry workers and forestry officials.
The Forestry Experts’ Association and the Ivalo branch of the Wood and Allied Workers’ Union said demands by environmental activists for increased conservation in Northern Finland and Upper Lapland are being intensified by exploiting the plight of reindeer husbandry and the question of Sami landownership.
And in September Greenpeace Germany called on German paper buyers to boycott forest products made in Northern Finland – a move the protestors described as a “reckless indifference to the facts and daily lives of ordinary people living in Lapland”.
Branding the environmentalists as “conservation terrorists”, the protestors said they have brought local communities to the verge of social crisis.
Concern has alos been expressed by the Forest Owners Union of Northern Finland which said a significant reduction in felling opportunities could put some sawmills out of business.
