Nippon Paper is the biggest buyer of Gunns' old growth woodchips -- purchasing over 1,400,000 tons last year -- and the second largest paper company in Japan. Nippon's purchases of these woodchips is a driving force behind Gunns' destruction of Tasmania's ancient forests. Moreover, since Gunns' practices are so bad that even dubious companies like APP (Asia Pulp & Paper) won't buy from them, it seems likely that if Nippon would stop their purchases Gunns would have a hard time selling their old growth wood elsewhere and therefore a huge step towards protection for Tasmania's ancient forests would be achieved.

A few quick facts about the infamous practices of Gunns Ltd:

• They have clear-cut thousands of acres of old-growth forests in Tasmania (Australian island)
• They firebomb the cleared land
• They have poisoned hundreds of thousands of protected species with 1080 poison
• They have attacked on freedom of speech of citizens in Australia

Nippon has promised its customers that it does not buy wood from old growth or high conservation value forests, and that Gunns' logging operations meet FSC standards -- none of which is remotely true. This information reportedly comes from Gunns and Australian forestry officials, and Nippon has accepted it as fact, despite that anyone in Tasmania knows that this is false. Even the Australian government has disclosed that at least 2,500 hectares of old growth are logged annually in Tasmania.

For more information:

• Check out RAN's new report that exposes the connection between Japanese paper companies and the destruction of Tasmanian forests. Click here to see the report yourself.
   
• Read David's blog post about his recent trip to Japan, meetings with local activists, work with Japanese paper companies, and of course... jetlag. Read the post here.
   
• For details on Nippon's Raw Material Procurement Policy, visit their website here.
   
• Check out our campaign web site, www.TreesNotGunns.org