From grbarry@students.wisc.edu Tue Aug 1 09:57:07 2000 Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2000 12:43:21 -0500 From: Glen R. BarrySubject: BIOD: Following the Trail of Illegal Rainforest Wood *********************************************** WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS Following the Trail of Illegal Rainforest Wood *********************************************** Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org, Inc. http://forests.org/ -- Forest Conservation Archives http://forests.org/web/ -- Discuss Forest Conservation 07/24/00 OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY Greenpeace has completed a two-year investigation, tracking timbers that were illegally exported by transnational loggers from the Amazon to prestigious institutions such as the British Museum and Heals Furniture in Great Britain. The fact that legitimate users of wood were shown to be complicit in the massive scourge of illegal timber harvest blanketing the globe illustrates the developed World's complicity in ancient forest loss. Until all wood and wood products have independent certification of their entire chain of origin and sustainability of management practices, any one of us could be contributing to the total demise of the Planet's ancient forests by buying virtually any wood product. A Greenpeace activist sums it up nicely, quoted below as saying "What we want is certified, sustainable logging. We are not against logging jobs, but we want jobs for ever, rather than the short term." Practices such as death threats and bribery are being practiced by a handful of predatory companies to access and liquidate the World's remaining large, wild forests. But increasingly through the good works of many, their veil of anonymity and impunity is being removed, and governments are being forced to address the matter. Keep up the great work Greenpeace! We are with you and we know we will win. g.b. P.S. I am sending this to the Papua New Guinea list also because one of the companies named in supplying the illegal logs is WTK, active in the Vanimo and Madang area. ******************************* RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE: Title: Trail of rainforest wood from the Amazon to the high street Activists track illegal exports to shops and builders Source: Guardian Newspapers Limited, Copyright 2000 Date: July 23, 2000 Byline: Anthony Browne, environment correspondent anthony.browne@observer.co.uk The British Museum and world-famous furniture store Heals are in disarray this weekend over allegations that they are supporting the illegal destruction of the Amazon rainforest. Shockwaves have been sent through the British furniture and building industry as a result of a two-year investigation by Greenpeace which has revealed for the first time the extent to which illegally logged wood from Brazil is surreptitiously exported to the UK. The campaigners, working with Brazilian environmental officials, tracked trees from the depths of the Amazon forest to timber merchants in Britain. They showed how the increasingly rare samoama tree - dubbed 'Queen of the Forest' - which soars above protected areas of the jungle is turned into cheap plywood trampled on in the building sites of high-profile British government projects, and used in furniture in Britain's most prestigious stores. To uncover the evidence Greenpeace took a North Sea repair ship, complete with aircraft and launches, down tributaries of the Amazon. They also used electronic tracking devices, fluorescent marker paints and old-fashioned impersonation, pretending to be students, customers and budding entrepreneurs. Until now there has been little evidence about how the wood enters Britain. The Brazilian government reckons 80 per cent of logging in the Amazon is illegal, but is unable to control the trade because of the huge profits involved. The official environmental inspectors, IBAMA, have just one inspector for each area of jungle the size of Switzerland. The surreptitious trade in illegal wood is masterminded by Asian companies which have been repeatedly fined by the Brazilian government for illegal logging, but it continues with the aid of death threats, bribery of officials, links to the drugs trade - and the unwitting support of British companies who are told the wood comes from legal sources. More than 1,400 tonnes of plywood from the Amazon is exported to Britain each month. The investigation has led to multi-million dollar fines in Brazil, protests by loggers, police raids of warehouses, and the government revoking dozens of logging licences as a result of what they called the 'Greenpeace effect'. The investigation showed that the logging company Amaplac, which has been fined three times by the Brazilian government for possessing illegal logs, has supplied more than 300 sheets of plywood made from Amazonian trees for the construction of the British Museum's forecourt. The samoama trees, noted for their fine buttress roots, have been turned into hoardings. The British Museum - which has a firm policy against using illegally logged wood - issued a statement insisting that it had been 'reassured by our suppliers that the plywood being used in our current construction programme has been manufactured from sustainable sources'. However, immediately afterwards its timber supplier, Lawsons, said it would stop buying from Amaplac until it could be sure the wood was legal. Amaplac is facing a mass boycott by British firms, with several others - including Lathams and Jewsons - suspending contracts last week. John Sauven, director of forestry at Greenpeace, said: 'All the companies have glowing policies on this, but when it comes to reality they don't know what they are doing. It's their responsibility to check on their suppliers - who have a criminal record, their third party suppliers have a criminal record, and 80 per cent of Amazon logging is criminal.' The investigation also revealed that the Amazonian wood is being used in a 15-drawer cabinet sold at Heals for more than o1,000. The wood was ultimately supplied by the Japanese company Eidai, which has amassed dozens of prosecutions for illegal logging in the Amazon and was recently fined $1.8 million (o1.2m) as a result of the Greenpeace investigation. An employee of Eidai was caught trying to bribe an IBAMA official at Brasilia airport, after handing over a suitcase with almost $300,000 in cash. Heals had been reassured by its furniture makers that the Eidai wood was from sustainable sources - based simply on reassurances from Eidai itself. Sally Bendelow, purchasing director at Heals, told The Observer: 'I'm shocked. We don't want to be involved in anything like this. Perhaps our due diligence is rubbish.' The directors of Heals, a favourite of the Bloomsbury set, will next week discuss how to maintain its 180-year reputation. The Greenpeace investigation showed that one trail of illegal timber starts high up the Jurua tributary in the heart of the vast Amazonas state. On separate sorties, Greenpeace's Cessna aeroplane spotted 50 log rafts floating down rivers, which the campaigners then followed on launches. The log rafts had floated downstream from land protected by law. But far from the eyes of government officials, the law is largely ignored. Local patrones - landlords - make their money illegally chopping down the trees. As they float downstream, nudged by barges, the log rafts are sold on and joined together. By the time they reached the Amazonas capital of Manaus the rafts have thousands of logs each. At Manaus the logs were bought by Amaplac, a subsidiary of the Malaysian company WTK. In a big sawmill in Manaus the Queen of the Forest is pulped into plywood, packed into containers, and loaded on to ships owned by the German shipping company B&F. Almost three- quarters of Amaplac's exports of plywood go to the UK, and once a month the boat takes the cargo across the Atlantic to Tilbury docks. At Tilbury the containers are unloaded into a large warehouse. Greenpeace activists painted slogans on the crates, and planted tracking devices inside. They slept outside the docks, then followed the vans and lorries as they distributed the wood around the country. 'The workers at the docks were very supportive of us when they realised why we were doing it,' said Sauven. The Amaplac wood is collected by a large timber merchant, then distributed to smaller timber yards and so to builders. One timber merchant, Lawsons, takes the wood to north London builders through its Drayton Park timber yard. Lawsons' delivery details show that, over the last three months, 300 sheets of Amaplac plywood have been delivered to Alandale Construction for use at the British Museum. The dozens of other sites using the wood include the Olympia and Earl's Court Exhibition Centres. Earl's Court said it had no policy on the issue. Greenpeace followed another illegal timber trail from the already largely devastated region of Para in eastern Brazil. They encountered a lorry carrying seven logs, which an IBAMA official identified as being illegally cut down. The activists followed it to a warehouse outside the Amazon port of Belem, owned by Eidai. Armed Eidai guards would not let the IBAMA officials in to inspect the warehouse, and only backed down when police support arrived. Based on what they found inside the warehouse IBAMA imposed a $1.8m fine on Eidai. IBAMA was so concerned about the extent of illegal logging by companies it had granted licences to that it immediately revoked most of the licences in the region, telling local journalists it was because of the 'Greenpeace effect'. The activists then followed an Eidai shipment from Brazil to Felixstowe, on board the P&O Nedlloyd Kingston. A Greenpeace activist found the Amazonian wood being used by Kala Designs in Suffolk. Kala reassured Heals the wood was not illegally logged. Sauven of Greenpeace said: 'What we want is certified, sustainable logging. We are not against logging jobs, but we want jobs for ever, rather than the short term.' Greenpeace will this week present its evidence to the Department of Environment Transport and the Regions, which is planning to announce that all wood used in government projects must come from legal sources. ###RELAYED TEXT ENDS### This document is a PHOTOCOPY for educational, personal and non- commercial use only. Recipients should seek permission from the source for reprinting. All efforts are made to provide accurate, timely pieces; though ultimate responsibility for verifying all information rests with the reader. Check out our Gaia's Forest Conservation Archives & Portal at URL= http://forests.org/ Networked by Forests.org, Inc., grbarry@students.wisc.edu