The gang lurched in front of Officeworks, Glebe, just past 9am last Thursday morning, wearing black bodysuits, white masks and carrying replica chainsaws. While the group of ghouls did not exactly petrify pedestrians, they definitely garnered an audience on the corner of Ross Street and the Great Western Highway.
Known collectively as the Reflex Family, the mob of monsters held a large, explanatory sign featuring a small, endangered Leadbeaters possum, “one of the helpless victims of Officework’s policy to stock Reflex paper.”
The spooky stunt is part of a series of theatrical protests staged by the Wilderness Society, aiming to show the harm that Officeworks, as the largest retailer of Reflex paper in Australia, inflicts to native forests in Victoria.
“Reflex paper destroys rainforests,” said Malcolm Fisher, Community Campaigner for the Wilderness Society.
“We want to educate people that it is unethical and put pressure on Officeworks to cease stocking Reflex.”
Mr Fisher described that Reflex paper is made from trees in the central highlands of Victoria, and the mass destruction of thousands of acres also decimates the habitat of species such as the Sooty Owl, the Spot-tailed Quoll and the Leadbeaters possum, Victoria’s faunal emblem. Professor David Lindenmayer, ANU ecologist (with over 25 years of forest management research) also stated that the Leadbeater Possum
is being pushed “incredibly close to extinction… forestry is the key threatening process,” with just 1000 estimated to be left in the area.
However, Shaun Scallan, General Manager of Corporate Social Responsibility at Australian Paper, owner of the Reflex brand, maintains this is a questionable statistic.
“There are lots of other populations of Leadbeater Possum around,” said Mr Scallan. “Only 58 per cent of our trees are plantation pine trees, the remainder are from native forests.”
David Walsh, spokesperson for Vic Forests, the state organisation that owns and manages the area of the Victorian Highlands, controlling the supply of timber, stated that adequate conservation methods are in place.
“We inspect all areas prior to harvesting to detect any Leadbeaters habitat,” said Mr Walsh.
“No harvesting takes place in those areas and we assess the forest using criteria developed by the Department of Sustainability.”
These measures are deemed insufficient by Mr Fisher, who views the sourcing of materials by Australian Paper detrimental to health of Victoria’s irreplaceable forests.
“Office works own environmental policy is quite strong,” pointed out Mr Fisher. “A company that professes to care about the environment should stop selling this product. The decimation of large forests also affects water catchments. These forest are judged to be the most carbon dense on the planet, and in terms of biodiversity and climate change they‘re very important.”
The Wilderness Society will continue to roll out more activities over the year, with a number of protests planned on a national scale. Individuals can also pledge not to buy Reflex paper on the organisation’s website: www.wilderness.org.au
BY MILLICENT CAFFREY
