Blog: Forests

The undercover experts down the road at the Environmental Investigation Agency have released this short video exposing the trade in illegal timber from the forests of Laos. Shady deals and corruption allow large amounts of dodgy lumber to be processed in Vietnam and Thailand, where it's made into products like garden furniture for export to (among other places) the UK. Yet another reason why we need laws in Europe to ban the import of illegal timber.

In a few weeks' time on Tuesday 15 April, every fuel company in the UK will be obliged to include a certain amount of biofuel in their petrol and diesel supplies. This is because, to comply with EU policies, the government has decreed we will all be using biofuels whether we want to or not but as you're probably aware, a lot of people have severe concerns about this.

Boarding the Galina III yesterday © Greenpeace/Karl Joseph

Yesterday afternoon, the crew of one of our ships - the Arctic Sunrise - swung into action in the French port of Caen. Their mission: to prevent a shipment of Amazon timber, acquired from companies linked to illegal logging activities, from entering the EU. And after nearly 24 hours, they're still going strong.

The timber is aboard the Galina III and, as it tried to enter the port, five Greenpeace volunteers (including a group from the UK) climbed aboard where they attached themselves to two of the ship's cranes. Since then, the Galina has been unable to dock to unload its cargo, a mixture of timber species with wonderfully exotic names: amarelao, macaranduba, ipe, garapeira, cumaru and jarana to name a few. And as I write, the team on the cranes is still holding out.

Greenpeace volunteers and Lake Murray clansmen marking out boundaries in 2006

Long-time readers may remember that two years ago a team of Greenpeace campaigners and volunteers arrived at Lake Murray in Papua New Guinea to establish a forest rescue station. They were invited by local clans to help mark out and document the boundaries of their traditional lands, and also to train people in eco-forestry techniques.

Last week, the first fruits of that project were delivered in the form of a shipment of timber from Lake Murray arriving in Sydney. Sep Galeva, a landowner and one of the key players in the eco-timber project, explained to the press how working on this community initiative has helped protect their part of the rainforest from industrial logging.