Spectacular protest in Vienna, Austria targets pulp mill

Gunns is dangerously close to getting pulp mill finance. But our international efforts to stop the pulp mill are ramping up!

We know that Austrian Company Andritz wants to supply the pulp mill equipment and build the project and Austrian Export Credit Agency OeKB are considering partly funding the pulp mill.

Activists from Greenpeace and ECA Watch transformed the building’s main entrance into a tree-eating monster, pointing to the significant role Andritz could play in destroy some of the world’s last high conservation value forests. Photo (c) Greenpeace/Prinz Kurt

So we've been working with our mates at ECA Watch, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace in Austria. In July last year The Wilderness Society went to Austria and with the support of the local groups met with OeKB to make sure they knew just how environmentally destructive Gunns' pulp mil would be. 

Overnight (our time) ECA Watch and Geenpeace held a spectacular protest out the front of Andritz's headquarters transforming the building's main entrance into a tree-eating monster.

Anyone considering being involved in Gunns' pulp mill will be supporting a project which is opposed by the majority of Australian's and by people around the world who want to protect our natural world heritage and promote a safe climate.

Our work over the last year and recent ads in the Financial Times and The Australian have resulted in more than 15 major international corporations confirming they won’t fund the pulp mill. Many thanks to everyone who helped fund these ads.

In response to our campaign, Gunns and lobbying interests have been picketing our offices, MPs' offices and the ANZ (Gunns' banker) demanding the pulp mill goes ahead. Every effort is being made by them to secure pulp mill funding both here in Australia and overseas.

If they're successful, for the next 20 years Tasmania's magnificent forest ecosystems will be locked into industrial-scale logging along the lines of what takes place in Brazil and Indonesia. We can't allow this to happen.

In the coming days and weeks, we will be working tirelessly to uncover and educate any more potential investors and keep up the pressure on them.

So please keep up your support. Now more than ever, it's vital we do more, and fast, to ensure this project is stopped completely and Tasmania's world-class forests are safe.