Environmental Direct Action Network
Westin Bayshore Resort and Marina (west Georgia and Cardero)
Vancouver, BC - While 60 corporate CEO's and over 400 executives from some of the world's largest logging companies meet behind closed doors to divide up the worlds last remaining forests and plot to increase consumption activists will give their own message outside the meeting of the Global Forest and Paper Summit. Members of the newly formed Vancouver Environmental Direct Action Network (VEDAN), a international coalition of members of the Pagan Cluster, the Environmental Direct Action Network, and others, set up a structure and suspended a woman over 35 feet in the air in an attempt to send delegates a very clear message.
"Thanks to companies like Abitibi, Weyerhaeuser and International Paper, our forests are currently on the brink of collapse. We have already lost over 80% of the worlds original forests" asserted activist Heidi Smith. "All over the world citizens are standing up and fighting for a sustainable future. We are here to make sure these companies get the message."
Over 500 senior forest and paper industry executives, industry analysts, suppliers, and government policymakers from around the world will meet during the three-day conference to decide the fate of the world's forests. The conference has one lone delegate from an environmental organization.
"These people are meeting to discuss the future of our forests and yet they have only one civil society rep," said another member of the organization.
"We have seen the future they want to create. We see it in the United States and Indonesia - where only a fraction of their old growth forests remain, and we see it here today with sessions like "Growing the Market: Strategies for Increasing Consumption of Paper & Wood Products" we know the vision they are seeking. We want a different future, one where jobs and the environment work and support each other not another greenwash."
The tripod stood in the streets for over 2 hours as activists danced and chanted beneath it. It was an amazing site with the hotel perched in the background. The group was able to negotiate with police officers and took the structure down without any arrests. The message resounded inside the meeting of the protest outside. The tripod blocked traffic and forced police officers to divert delegate vehicles to various locations. After the tripod was taken down the protestors marched to the hotel and sent the delegates a very clear message, your vision is a "clearcut way to extinction. Stop logging now!!"
Yesterday over 200 activists took to the streets dressed as cariboo and had a huge migration to the conference headquarters. They were joined by stilt walkers, marching bands, pagans and more. Other activists entered the meeting forcing them to cancel a session.
"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars..."
- Jack Kerouac
"The Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White's Citizen's Council-er or the KKK, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who constantly say, "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action."
- Martin Luther King Jr.