Greenpeace Activists Prevent Unloading of Ship’s Cargo

Acting under cover of darkness, environmental activists protesting the logging of old-growth rain forests boarded a 570-foot freighter as it sailed into Long Beach Harbor on Tuesday and prevented the ship from unloading its cargo of Canadian newsprint by chaining themselves to a crane.

A flotilla of inflatable boats from Greenpeace International put swimmers in the path of the cargo ship Thorseggen before dawn, then raced alongside the vessel’s hull at 15 knots, allowing a boarding party of four to climb over the side.

When the ship anchored in the Port of Long Beach a short time later, Greenpeace members locked a device on the links of the Thorseggen’s anchor chain, preventing the crew from hoisting it.

By morning, two members of the boarding party were suspended in midair with rope tied to the forward crane’s superstructure. About 15 feet above them, two other boarders had chained themselves to the steel supports.

Between the dangling Greenpeace members hung a huge banner, “Stop Destroying the Great Bear Rainforest.” That area in the Canadian province of British Columbia is one of the world’s largest temperate rain forests.

“This is a spiritual high,” said Bill Herbert, 28, of Los Angeles, one of the Greenpeace members locked to the Thorseggen’s crane. “I think we are making our point that cutting the last ancient forests on the planet is not acceptable.”

Coast Guard officials in Long Beach said the Thorseggen’s crew notified them of the encounter with Greenpeace about 6 a.m. The Coast Guard ordered the freighter to anchor and dispatched several 41-foot patrol craft to establish a 500-yard safety zone around the ship to keep four Greenpeace boats away.

The perimeter was enforced throughout the day by a variety of Coast Guard vessels. Though the boarders face potential criminal charges, no one had been arrested or removed from the ship by Tuesday night.

Greenpeace officials said the Thorseggen was loaded with 8,000 tons of newsprint, which is partly manufactured from wood taken from temperate rain forests along the coast of British Columbia. Those forests, they said, are some of the most endangered in the world.

According to Greenpeace, the newsprint was made by Fletcher Challenge, a Canadian company doing business with phone book publishers and major newspapers, such as the Orange County Register and Los Angeles Times.

Fletcher Challenge buys its raw materials from International Forest Products Limited, based in Vancouver. Greenpeace contends that International Forest Products is one of the main companies threatening the largest unprotected temperate rain forest on Earth.

“The United States is the greatest consumer of wood products in the world,” said Marc Evans, a Greenpeace member participating in the protest. “We are driving the destruction of ancient rain forest.”

Greenpeace demands that International Forest Products stop logging the temperate rain forests in Canada’s coastal valleys and start a preservation program. The group also requests that companies here and abroad stop doing business with International Forest Products or other firms that log old-growth rain forest.

Rick Slaco, the chief forester for International Forest Products, disputed Greenpeace’s charges that his company is destroying old-growth rain forest. He accused the group of undertaking a disinformation campaign about the Canadian timber industry.

“We are practicing sustainable forest management in the area,” Slaco said. “Some of the best practices in the entire world are being done in British Columbia. We have some of the most stringent regulations in place and certainly the most comprehensive in terms of planning.”

Slaco and other Canadian foresters said the area Greenpeace was referring to is actually named the Central Coast. “The Great Bear Rain Forest” was conjured up by Greenpeace, they said, to help in its fund-raising efforts.

“I don’t believe their line on the forest is environmentally correct. What are we supposed to do? Stop cutting trees?” said Patrick Moore, a Canadian ecologist and co-founder of Greenpeace, who broke away from the group in the late 1980s. “British Columbia has the most comprehensive and aggressive program of creating new parks and wilderness areas in the world.”

Thomas Henningsen, one of the Greenpeace demonstrators, said the name of the Canadian rain forest doesn’t matter. What matters, he said, is that temperate rain forests are rapidly being destroyed in Russia, Canada and South America.

“We have 50 scientists from around the world who say that these rain forests need to be protected,” Henningsen said.

Martha H. Goldstein, vice president of corporate communications for Times Mirror Co., acknowledged that Fletcher Challenge is one of The Times’ suppliers of newsprint, but Times Mirror did not know whether the cargo on the Thorseggen belonged to the newspaper.

“We understand that the companies comply with all forestry management regulations in British Columbia,” Goldstein said. “The government has taken the position that those regulations provide for the perpetuation of old growth forest.”

Tuesday’s action was one of several Greenpeace has conducted over the last several months to protest timber industry practices it alleges are detrimental to the environment.

Earlier this year, Greenpeace members boarded the freighter Saga Wave in New London, Conn. The cargo ship was carrying wood products from another Canadian firm the group had targeted.