18.30pm Thursday 5th June, 2003. The Government today backed down and agreed to launch an enquiry into the use of Indonesian rainforest timber on the Home Office HQ site , 2 Marsham St, Westminster. In response eleven Greenpeace climbers who have occupied four 40 metre high cranes on the site for the past 2 days agreed to end their occupation and abseiled down from the cranes. The climbers (9 men and 2 women) were escorted off the site.
Yesterday, in response to questions about the Greenpeace occupation of the Home Office HQ site at Prime Ministers Questions, Tony Blair said that the Home Secretary 'vigorously disputed the claims being made'.
The Home Office had also been dismissing Greenpeace evidence of the use of illegally logged Indonesian rainforest timber on the site. The home office in a statement to the PA said yesterday that they were confident that all the timber being used in the construction of the new home office HQ was 'sourced legally and in accordance with government and good practice guide lines'
The developments today echo those of last year. Following a Greenpeace invasion of the cabinet office site last year, during which volunteers removed doors sourced from Africa's rain forests and replaced them with forest stewardship council certified (FSC) doors, Tony Blair in prime ministers questions accused Greenpeace of being 'misguided'. The cabinet office was later forced to retracted this statement, a government enquiry followed which, accepted Greenpeace's case and lead to promises to properly implement their timber procurement policy.
John Sauven, Greenpeace Forest campaigner said, "We hope today's statement will result in the full implementation of the Governments procurement policy. We don't want to be back again next year, discovering that another rainforest is being trashed to provide timber for yet another government building project"
"The UK must also push the EU to ban the import of illegally logged timber. While the EU market continues to be flooded with cheap illegally logged timber there will be no hope for the worlds remaining ancient forests. Greenpeace will continue to monitor and investigate government timber use to ensure they are abiding fully with the commitments they made today."
Andy Tait, one of the climbers involved in the occupation said, "it's been a long and tiring couple of days but we've been kept going by the messages of support from the members of the public, including a lot of government employees. The government must act now, before Indonesia's rain forests are completely trashed."
