Authors visit threatened Finnish ancient forests

A group of Europen writers have arrived at our Forest Rescue Station, situated 300 kilometres norh of the Arctic Circle in northern Finland, to see for themselves the effect of relentless logging on the last Sàmi reindeer forests. The Sàmi are indigenous reindeer herders who rely on Lapland's remaining old-growth forests to provide vital food for their herds during the cold winter months. The reindeer forests have been reduced piece by piece by the government's own logging company, Metsähallitus, which carries out most of the logging in Lapland.

Currently visiting the Forest Rescue Station are Javier Morro (Spain), Niccolo Ammaniti (Italy), Ken Finn (U.K.), Karel Verleyen (Belgium), Aurèlie Filipetti (France), Robin Valtiala (Finland) and Lydia Rood (The Netherlands). Other internationally renowned writers, including Isabel Allende, Gunter Grass, Margaret Atwood and Ian Rankin have pledged their support to the campaign.

The Forest Rescue Station is monitoring logging operations and assisting the Sàmi reindeer herding co-operatives in mapping and demarcating important areas of forest, which are home to thousands of indigenous people. The campaign has already been instrumental in convincing the Xerox Corporation (USA) to agree to stop buying copy paper sourced from the ancient forests in the Sàmi region. We are also calling on top British magazine publishers including the BBC, EMAP and IPC to stop buying paper from the region.

Together with the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation (FANC) and a majority of the reindeer herding co-operatives, we are demanding that harmful industrial logging be banned within these mapped areas, and that the needs of the Sàmi and other indigenous people be respected.

A coalition of reindeer herding co-operatives has been calling on the Finnish government to announce a moratorium on logging in the Sàmi forest areas which have already been mapped. We are fully supporting these demands, and are urging the government to take immediate action.

Read the daily weblog from the Station to find out more about the Sàmi and the action we are taking to help them defend their threatened forests.