The people of Estonia struggling to prevent a huge ‘biorefinery’, which would consume a quarter of Estonia’s wood supply and pollute the country’s second largest river, have today received support from concerned organisations all over the world. Estonian civil society groups, the City of Tartu, the former prime minister and many prominent scientists have already made public statements of their opposition and tomorrow, thousands of Estonians will take to the streets to protest the proposed Est-For pulp mill and energy plant and demand that the government show it a red light. Today, the Environmental Paper Network (EPN) is releasing a discussion document: "Bio-refinery: new name, dirty old story" detailing the concerns of civil society, scientists and politicians about the proposed ‘Est-For’ pulp mill and energy plant. Mandy Haggith, co-ordinator of the EPN said, "The promotors of Est-For want people to think that their biorefinery would be something shiny and clean, but in fact it would be a pulp mill using dirty old-fashioned technology, coupled to a forest-guzzling energy plant. We hope that the Estonian government will listen to the concerns of the people and that potential investors will tune into the discussion about the environmental and social risks of the project before considering financing it."
The discussion document “Bio-refinery: new name, dirty old story” is published here: http://environmentalpaper.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/180517-EstFor-briefing-final.pdf
A webinar will be held on Thursday 24 May at 9am UK, 10am CET, 11am Estonia to discuss the document and ‘biorefinery’ plan. Register at this link: http://bit.ly/2rRhen6