Following the success of our garden furniture work in 2004, we undertook new research in Spring 2005. This revealed that in their quest to supply garden furniture Wyevale, Britain's largest garden centre chain, were trashing endangered rainforests and helping to fund one of the most brutal military dictatorships in the world.
Some of the timber for Wyevale's 2005 garden furniture range was sourced from the last rainforests of South East Asia. Illegal and destructive logging in the rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia is driving critically endangered species such as the orang-utan to the brink of extinction, where it is estimated that as much as half the population of orang-utans has been wiped out in just ten years. The company were also purchasing timber from Burma, helping to fund the country's military dictatorship.
As a result, Greenpeace activists across the UK visited nearly 60 Wyevale stores over the Easter Bank Holiday Weekend to tell customers about Wyevale's purchasing practices.
For people who want to ensure that their garden furniture comes does not come from ancient forest destruction, we launched a user-friendly online consumer guide. You can search for your local store to see where their garden furniture is coming from and whether the gazebos or recliners on sale are certified to the standards of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), which ensures timber products are from legal and well managed sources.
In addition we produced a new league table of garden furniture retailers, in which we rated the progress of different UK retailers on the purchase of timber from environmentally and socially responsible sources. Whilst some, like B&Q and Tesco were selling a lot of FSC certified garden furniture, other outlets like Argos and Wyevale were continuing to contribute to the destruction of the world's last rainforests.
UPDATE: Following the launch of our Garden Furniture Guide Wyevale pledged to withdraw all garden furniture made from Burmese timber. They are now working with the Tropical Forest Trust to implement a policy to eliminate all illegally logged timber from their supply chain and have committed to selling only timber from well-managed forests.
