ATLANTA (From the Atlanta Business Chronicle) -- A company accused by Greenpeace of destroying endangered forests and destruction of endangered species has filed a lawsuit in a Georgia federal court that claims Greenpeace is guilty of racketeering and trademark defamation - and induces donations for its leaders using 'sensational misinformation.'

Resolute Forest Products Inc., which is based in Montreal, Quebec, on Tuesday filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia against Greenpeace International, Greenpeace USA, Greenpeace Fund, Inc., STAND (formerly ForestEthics) and a number of their associates.

Resolute is seeking compensatory damages in an amount to be proven at trial as well as other damages.

The first paragraph of the lawsuit states:

"Greenpeace" is a global fraud. For years, this international network of environmental groups collectively calling themselves "Greenpeace" has fraudulently induced people throughout the United States and the world to donate millions of dollars based on materially false and misleading claims about its purported environmental purpose and its"campaigns" against targeted companies. Maximizing donations, not saving the environment, is Greenpeace's true objective. Consequently, its campaigns are consistently based on sensational misinformation untethered to facts or science, but crafted instead to induce strong emotions and, thereby, donations. Moreover, virtually all of Greenpeace's fraudulently induced donations are used to perpetuate the corrupted entity itself and the salaries of its leaders and employees.

Click here to view a copy of the lawsuit.

Resolute says in a prepared statement that the company filed the lawsuit following Greenpeace's self-described "Resolute: Forest Destroyer" campaign which, Resolute says, falsely accuses Resolute of, among other things: (a) "destroying endangered forests," and "operating and sourcing wood . . . in violation of law"; (b) causing the "destruction of endangered species" and "critical caribou habitat" and risking a "Caribou Herd Death Spiral," "extirpation" and "extinction;" (c) "abandoning" and "impoverishing" the Boreal's indigenous communities; and (d) impairing the Boreal's ability to mitigate climate change.

The company, which is one of the largest providers of newsprint in the United States, says it has planted more than a billion trees in the Boreal and that Greenpeace used staged photos falsely purporting to show Resolute logging in prohibited areas and as having harvested areas that were actually affected by fire.

Resolute filed a lawsuit against Greenpeace in 2013, after Greenpeace accused it of building roads and cutting trees in regions of Quebec it had promised it would stay out of under the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement, an agreement on forest preservation and harvesting signed by environmental groups and Canada's main forestry companies, according to a story published in 2014 by Canada's The Globe and Mail.

Greenpeace later retracted allegations it had made about road-building, but Resolute accused the group of repeating those charges, the paper said in the report.

Resolute owns or operates more than 40 pulp, paper, tissue and wood products facilities in the United States, Canada and South Korea, as well as power generation assets in Canada and the United States.