QUEBEC CITY — A dozen Greenpeace activists have chained themselves to a building in Quebec City housing the provincial Ministry of Natural Resources.

The environmental group says it plans to disrupt ministry business today to protest what it says is the destruction of intact forests.

Greenpeace dropped off a load of two-by-fours outside the building before the activists chained themselves to the doors (at 880 Chemin Saint-Foy). They also hung a banner reading: "Boreal Forest: The Destruction Starts Here."

Nicolas Mainville, a Greenpeace forest campaigner, said in a statement that it is time for the ministry to "drastically change direction" towards sustainable forestry.

He said the ministry plans to approve in the fall a new forest bill to allow intensive forestry in an area 150 times larger than the island of Montreal.

Mainville said the logging would further degrade Quebec's last remaining intact forest areas and the habitat of the threatened woodland caribou.