Paperlinx Green Shareholders' Group

Resolutions - Amcor Annual General Meeting - 1999

The following two resolutions have been requisitioned by the Group.
They have been placed upon the notice paper, as resolutions numbered 8 and 9.

Resolutions 1 to 7 have to do with:

1. Acceptance of the Financial Statements and Reports
2. Election of Directores
3. Approval of Director's Deeds
4. Remuneration of Non-Executive Directors
5. Approval of Share Pland for Non-Executive Directors
6. Issue of Options to Managing Director
7. Amendment of Constitution

Resolution 8 - Native Forests

That the Board recognize that Amcor's continuing use of logs from clear felled native forests and the accompanying degradation of water catchments has a bad effect on the Company's reputation and will cut profits in the future.
Therefore the Board is asked to produce plans and make them available to shareholders for Amcor to rapidly phase out reliance on native forests until all fibre is sourced from plantation timber and recycled paper.

Amcor's current poor environmental performance matters to all investors because it will increasingly sully Amcor's reputation and thus erode profits. To illustrate why, imagine which of the following news items you would rather hear:

1. Amcor share prices dropped dramatically on the All Ords today as a result of a class action launched by irate Melbourne Water consumers, investors and Gippsland farmers.
   Lawyers handling the case say they can show how Amcor's logging of water catchments has reduced and degraded Melbourne Water's most valuable asset, leading to the recent serious water restrictions and subsequent dislocation of industry and community.
   One of those bringing the action quipped "Amcor will wish they were Esso by the time this case is over."

2. Amcor, Australia's largest paper manufacturer, today launched its new product "Re-psych" - a fine office paper made without felling so much as one sapling of native forest.
   Share prices rose reflecting public confidence in "Re-psych". The director of the Australian Conservation Foundation heaped praise on Amcor Board and Management for their foresight and innovation.
   Amcor Chairman said advance sales of "Re-psych" had exceeded even generous estimates, and the environmental endorsement had given the paper the edge in emerging Asian/Pacific markets, as well as at home.

Water and forests will be a scarce resource next century.

Loss of biodiversity through degradation of these resources threatens the survival of human life on earth.

This resolution urges the Board to embrace this fact and take a longer term and environmentally responsible approach to planning.

It is quite wrong for Amcor to say that they "only clean up the waste" after logging for sawlogs.
For some years now Amcor has been extracting pulplogs from clearfelling operations in the Central Highlands of Victoria.
This includes forests that used to be managed as closed catchments.

Research on water yeilds from the Ash forests shows a 50% reduction after logging, and estimates that reduced yields will take 150 years to recover.

Clearfelling on 50-80 year rotations means that they will never fully recover.

Other adverse effects include reduced water quality due to increased stream sediment loads, especially after heavy rain, and higher flood peaks with damage to roads, bridges and farms.

In a dry continent, damage to our water catchments and declining native forests due to logging, given Amcor's insistence on native forest woodchips, will harm public perceptions of our company.

It need not be so.

The Board should grasp this opportunity to produce plans for environmentally friendly products, as European manufacturers have done already, and as all successful manufacturers of paper will be forced to do if they are to remain viable in the long term.

Resolution 9 - Logging Practices

That the Amcor Board takes responsibility to ensure all logging on land it owns and leases conforms to at least the minimum standards set out in the current Victorian 'Code of Forest Practices for Timber Production' (Revision No. 2, November 1996).

Background:
Amcor takes logs from Gippsland's forests and water catchments, both from land it owns and land it leases in areas of public forest.

The Board must take responsibility for the standards applied to logging on this land.

• The great area involved means that Amcor's logging practices are crucial to:
• Conservation of flora and fauna, many species now threatened in this area of Gippsland
• Loss of fertile topsoil by compaction and erosion
• Water quality and quantity, in streams, rivers and the Gippsland Lakes

The standards of logging and roading by Amcor and its contractors do not meet the minimum requirements of the 'Code of Forest Practices for Timber Production'.

Infringements have included:

• Logging on steep slopes, on soils extremely sensitive to erosion, tunnelling, and landslips.
• Non existent or inadequate buffer zones around watercourses and rainforest.
• Logging of rainforest gullies (protected under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act).
• Regeneration failures, replanting with inappropriate species, poisoning of native fauna.
• Burying, bulldozing, chain sawing of tree ferns.
• Snig and forwarding tracks pushed through sensitive streams, gullies and rainforest.
• Spills of oil and chemicals during servicing of machinery on log landings.
• Damage to soil fertility resulting from extremely hot burning in some areas.
• Poor construction of roads, tracks and culverts, precipitating erosion and land slips.
• Inadequate information and planning on logging coupe plans.

SIGNED .................................................................................

Name (Printed, as on dividend slips) ..............................................................................

Address ...............................................................................................................................

The Board's Response

Their grounds are stated at length.

To learn more about the background to our concerns, click here.

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