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March 24, 2005
At the StoraEnso AGM: Updated!
On Tuesday, in Helsinki, paper company StoraEnso had its annual general meeting. Matti, our campaigner, attended as a shareholder enabling us to put forward resolutions - which were read out by two Sámi people, Pauliina Feodoroff and Janne, from Inari, in the area where reindeer forests and the livelihoods of herders are under threat.
This was to highlight StoraEnso's responsibilities - such as in the cessation of logging in "restricted reindeer grazing forest areas marked on the maps by Inari" reindeer herding co-operatives - the areas which are destined to supply StoraEnso with woodpulp for paper manufacture.
"Reindeer herding is the basis of traditional Sámi culture," said Janne to the AGM. "The Finnish State has ignored the rights of Sámi people for decades by continuing to prioritise logging over reindeer herding. Our reindeer forests have been sold out for pulp production. Enough is enough!"
Pauliina, who is member of the Saami council said: "We Sámi people have never been able to force anyone to do anything. We do not have political power. We do not have manpower. We are a minority. We cant attack anyone. We can only appeal.. appeal.. appeal.. that you listen to us." The speech took up a whopping 30 minutes of the meeting - which was slated to last just three hours, and was broadcast live on StoraEnso's website.
Matti reports back: I have been in AGMs before. I know that it is not easy to stand up in front of hundreds of people in an unknown forum and speak up, in front of those camera flashes and tv-cameras. I felt sorry and proud at the same time when Pauliina and Janne made their speeches. But I felt especially sorry when I heard the arrogant answers from this multinational billion-dollar company. Arrogant answers like: "You ain't got no problems. There are enough protected areas and too many reindeer. This is not StoraEnso's problem. We are only buying that wood".
Turning Turtle
This is where it gets weird - despite its recent influence in convincing Metsähallitus to adopt a moratorium in some reindeer areas - StoraEnso has now turned turtle, with its Deputy CEO now claiming that the entire logging/reindeer forest is issue is "not directly linked to StoraEnso". Right...
Strange remark, this. Just a few weeks ago, Matti Karjula (Senior Vice President of Timber Procurement at StoraEnso) visited the Nellim region, and met with Sámi reindeer herders. He was struck by the beauty of the area, and agreed that Nellim was an urgent case. Following this, he successfully persuaded StoraEnso's wood supplier - the state forestry company, Metsähallitus, to stop logging in Nellim, on a temporary basis. Then StoraEnso strove to setup a round-table meeting of all the parties involved in the reindeer forest situation - that meeting took place Wednesday, in Ivalo.
But at StoraEnso's AGM, the impressive brokering work of Mr Karjula was swept away by his company's Deputy CEO Björn Hägglund, in a surprising corporate about-face manoeuvre. Mr Hägglund shrugged of StoraEnso's corporate responsibility, saying that the problem was a local issue, to be solved by local people. He said that StoraEnso would follow the lead of its supplier, Metsähallitus on this issue. In effect, StoraEnso is now dodging its corporate responsibility. While claiming that its environmentally conscious, and busy implementing a strong procurement policy, it has in effect handed over responsibility to its own timber supplier - the very supplier that its procurement policy is supposed to apply to.
This supplier - Metsähallitus - is of course, a Finnish state-owned company, so StoraEnso is now letting the Finnish state dictate its policies. Perhaps this shouldn't come as too much of a surprise, as the Finnish Ministry of Finance hold the controlling votes in StoraEnso... the plot thickens...
Accountability
Just who is accountable here? What's happened to Matti Karjula, and his good work? Has he been pushed aside by the Finnish government? While Xerox - a major customer of StoraEnso - has agreed to stop using wood fibre from Sámi Reindeer Forests in northern Finland, StoraEnso is taking no action at all instead deferring to the Finnish government, who also own StoraEnso's supplier - Metsähallitus. There's clearly a conflict of interest here. Just who is really calling the shots at StoraEnso?
Why did they pulled out of Wednesday's meeting? How can they be involved enough to organise a meeting, yet not enough to attend it? Lots of questions - but there's no answers yet.
- Phil & Dave
StoraEnso can stop the destruction of old-growth reindeer forests by not buying logs from these areas. Pressure them to change! »
Watch Stora Enso's AGM
(to see the proposal, scroll down to 'A proposal by the shareholders Matti Liimatainen and Annina Käppi'
Stora Enso's Board proposals to the Annual General Meeting
(scroll down to 'A proposal by the shareholders Matti Liimatainen and Annina Käppi)
Map of the Sámi Forests Paper Trail
Pulp Friction: How StoraEnso is Pulping Sámi Reindeer Forests
Pulp Friction: How StoraEnso is Pulping Sámi Reindeer Forests
Posted by Dave at March 24, 2005 09:55 AM
Comments
we are with you. Is there an email where to send protests?
Posted by: philippe boucher at March 24, 2005 04:49 AM
Yes Philippe -
StoraEnso can stop the destruction of old-growth reindeer forests by not buying logs from these areas. Pressure them to change! »
Posted by: Dave at March 24, 2005 10:01 AM
From Swedish GP site:
"Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation is the biggest Swedish owner in Swedish-Finnish Stora Enso, with over 20 percent of the share holders votes."
Maybe Greenpeace should launch a cyber action against the Wallenberg Foundation as well, to pressure them to take care of the Finnish Reindeer Forests!
Ann
Posted by: Ann Novek at March 24, 2005 05:28 PM
Ciao Carlina
e augurissimi per Pasqua
Baci ME
Posted by: Maria Elena at March 25, 2005 01:33 PM
The form I went to does not say to whom I would write. I would rather know that.
Reading again the story of the general assembly meeting and the follow up it looks like there could be different factions inside Stora and maybe inside the government? Maybe more people should go and visit the place planned for logging. This reminds me of John Muir inviting Ted Roosevelt to camp among the big woods and that started the national parks in the US. Many similar stories told by Dave Brower, where the magic of the place did convert people.
My best wishes to all for a good week-end.
Posted by: philippe boucher at March 25, 2005 09:57 PM
Sounds like a definate conflict of interest
Posted by: ro_G at March 27, 2005 04:12 AM
"Mr Hägglund shrugged of StoraEnso's corporate responsibility, saying that the problem was a local issue, to be solved by local people."
? clearly you contradict yourself. The meaning of corporate social responsibility is to give to the local's the possiblity to make decisions. What do you think that point above means? Just that, CSR. In a world we live in its plain utopy to think that all members of a certain discussion would be fully satisfied. Reindeer hearding's problems are elsewhere, see below.
[Touché Mr Rednose. The problem is, StoraEnso are not displaying this CSR. And the problem has not, and is not being resolved purely at the local level. - Dave]
I can never understand the narrowminds of some GP members. Fortunately in Finland some former members of GP and FANC have resigned, because of your latest campaign in Lapland. You are not dealing with the facts. Only causing hatered in the general Finnish public, of which most of the people know the Real situation.
[I can't speal for FANC members - but I can say for certain that no Greenpeace members have resigned. - Dave]
Some facts to remember: "The executive director of Ivalo Reindeer Herders’ Cooperative, Mr. Viljo Huru said that Greenpeace has driven the whole Inari to a deadly peril. ”The situation here is not at all as Greenpeace says. If it was, there wouldn’t have been any reindeer herding for decades”, he said." IN CONTRAST!
Criticism of GPs "report" by Leading reindeer researcher in Finland, senior researcher Mauri Nieminen from the Finnish Game and Fisheries Institute and the director of Institute’s Reindeer Research: "According to Nieminen, the report bypasses all the biggest problems in reindeer herding of which over-grazing due to too many reindeers is the most important in addition with the bad market situation. “The report is a one-sided overstatement. It even claims that the present protection areas in Upper Lapland are poor for reindeers. Researchers have found them to be just the opposite, good. For instance Sweden and Norway have nothing like it to the benefit the reindeers,” Nieminen says. Depending on the municipality, 3040% of the area of productive forests are protected in Upper Lapland."
[Mr Nieminen is, of course, fully entitled to oppose or criticise our report, just as we are entitled to criticise the work of others. - Dave]
And how about these claims by your organisation?
"In the Hague, Netherlands, in 18th of March for example there was stated that loggings in Upper Lapland are exterminating bear and flying squirrel In Finland. According to biologists, however, bear actually is not at all endangered in Finland due to forestry. As for the flying squirrel, according to elementary zoology it has never been able to survive as north as in Upper Lapland."
[Can you point me towards these discussions? - Dave]
I have also seen GP discussions were some members have claimed that some other animals would be endangered in Lapland. These allegations have been just false. I wonder if anyone of you can even look at those facts above and question them. You are just too mesmorized by the picture of untouched mystical forests, that you do not see what you are causing at the same time to the real Sustainable development and peoples livelihoods.
One request for GP. Could you next time in Finland , handle the problem of farming. There are too many fields with no trees. Surely we should terminate the farming industry to have more forests. Especially in Southern Finland, where new forests could be then protected. There's no point to have farming in Northern Europe when we could produce everything in better conditions in Central Europe. There we wouldn't even have to care about the forests, cause there's hardly any left..
[Neither the farming or forestry industry are exactly endangered - and it's a little bit outside our remit! - Dave]
Posted by: Rednose at March 29, 2005 02:41 PM
