National stationery retailer Officeworks has a lot of explaining to do by stocking paper sourced from native Australian forests, a green group says.
Members of the Wilderness Society held demonstrations outside Officeworks stores in every capital city on Tuesday, including in Brisbane where about 15 people protested.
They're calling for Officeworks to stop stocking Reflex paper which they say is sourced from native forests in Victoria.
Logging of the forests harms Australian wildlife, the Wilderness Society's Queensland campaign manager Tim Seelig said.
"It's clearly not the act of a good corporate citizen to be knowingly stocking paper that uses native forest timber unnecessarily," Mr Seelig told AAP.
"I think if Officeworks said very clearly, `We will stop selling Reflex until they stop using native forest timber', my guess is Reflex very quickly would respond to that economic signal.
"Officeworks have a lot of explaining to do now in terms of why they continue to stock this product."
But Officeworks managing director Mark Ward said dropping Reflex would not solve anything.
All Officeworks paper is certified to the Australian Forestry Standard, which is recognised by the international group Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification, Mr Ward said in a statement.
The company is looking at alternative paper sources to reduce its reliance on native timber.
"This is a significant undertaking and we recognise that a meaningful transition will take time," Mr Ward said.
heraldsun.com.au Sep 13 2011
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