ANZ Bank Withdrawal from Tasmanian Pulp Mill Disaster

Thanks to Glen...nice to see some eco action in action.....


PRESS RELEASE
Ecological Internet Welcomes ANZ Bank Withdrawal from
Tasmanian Pulp Mill Disaster

May 31, 2008
By Ecological Internet, http://www.ecologicalinternet.org/
and Forests.org, http://forests.org/

Ecological Internet (EI) welcomes news that ANZ Bank of
Australia will not fund the Gunns Tasmanian pulp mill. In a
statement ANZ announced it will not provide finance for the
AU$ 2 billion project to pulp ancient forests for throw-away
paper products, but did not provide a reason for withdrawing.
International environmental protest spearheaded by Ecological
Internet, in support of local protests, certainly played a
major role.

ANZ Bank, and the Australian and Tasmanian governments, have
been targets of environmental protest in country and from
Ecological Internet and other overseas groups for years. Most
recently, in early April, nearly 3,000 EI Earth Action Network
participants from 87 countries sent a quarter of a million
protest emails to ANZ and the Australian government asking
that ANZ withdraw funding. The Australian national government
was also called out for their hypocrisy in supporting
protection of forests overseas to address climate change, but
not in Tasmania. The archived successful alert can be found at:
http://www.climateark.org/alerts/send.asp?id=australia_tasmania_climate

"Thankfully, ANZ Bank has finally listened to its customers
and global citizens sickened by their profiteering from
ancient forest slaughter. They should be commended for
withdrawing from the ecologically disaster Gunns pulp mill.
Now perhaps ANZ will reexamine their lending to notorious
rainforest destroyer Rimbunan Hijau in Papua New Guinea as
well. And Australia end its logging shame by pulling Gunns'
pulp mill environmental approvals, ending this ghoulish
project once and for all," says Ecological Internet President
Dr. Glen Barry.

"It is amazing what global citizens, through participation in
a strong network anchored by a reliable hub, can achieve
together for ecological sustainability. As Ecological Internet
continues to raise funds to meet basic costs for our unique
brand of biocentric activism on the net, we hope this latest
in a string of victories will lead to increased individual and
foundation support for our campaign to end ancient forest
logging."

Ecological Internet stands alone as the only major
international forest campaigning group working to end ancient
forest logging and all industrial destruction of relatively
intact natural ecosystems. We seek permanent protections for
all remaining primary and old-growth forests (with appropriate
compensation and continued small scale use for local peoples),
advocate for ecological restoration and certified management
of regenerating and planted natural forest ecosystems, and
promote local peoples' pursuit of small-scale, community-based
eco-forestry projects based upon regenerating secondary and
standing ancient forests. This is the true path to global
forest sustainability.

###ENDS###
Contact: Dr. Glen Barry, GlenBarry(at) EcologicalInternet.org,
+1 920 776 1075