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| Boarding the MV Enif |
At 11.30am today, 6 Greenpeace volunteers boarded the MV Enif to stop criminalimports of wood from the Amazon rainforest. The volunteers attached themselves to the bow of the ship in the Thames Estuary, north of Sheerness, to prevent it from unloading at London's Tilbury Docks. Greenpeace has asked the ship's captain to return the criminal timber to Brazil. The MV Enif left the Amazon on May 20th.
The Brazilian Government has said that 80% of all wood logged in the Amazon is taken illegally. WTK, the Malaysian multinational behind these timber imports is one of the world's biggest rainforest destroyers. The company has numerous convictions, along with its third party log suppliers, for trading in illegal logs from the Amazon. WTK is also threatening to log on land belonging to Amazon Indians.
One of the volunteers, Eduardo Quartim from Greenpeace Brazil, who is attached to ship's mast said, "The unique Amazon rainforest is being destroyed by illegal and destructive logging. A lot of it ends up as cheap plywood on building sites in the UK. Yet few British people know this. We must all protect this ancient rainforest and the plants and animals that live in it before it's too late. We must stop these criminal timber imports."
Tony Blair has promised that the UK will tackle illegal logging domestically and will encourage the other big industrialised countries to do the same (1). He has so far failed to act. Every month up to 1400 tonnes of plywood from the Amazon ends up in the UK.
John Sauven, Greenpeace forest campaign director said, "Tony Blair has promised action to protect the world's remaining ancient forests. Yet every month chunks of the Amazon rainforest are still coming up the Thames into Tilbury. If Tony Blair won't end the UK's role in Amazon destruction then Greenpeace will."
Nearly 80 % of the world's ancient forest has already been destroyed or degraded. The remainder is disappearing at the rate of 10 million hectares every year - that's an area the size of a football pitch every two seconds. One seventh of the Amazon, an area the size of France, has already been lost.
A Greenpeace investigation in May and June in the area of the Amazon where WTK get their logs, uncovered several illegal log rafts. These logs included the increasingly rare Samauma tree, known locally as the 'Queen of the Forest' because it towers above its neighbours, reaching 30 metres in height and 3 metres in diameter".
Notes to Editors:
(1) In a letter to Greenpeace dated 26 th May 2000, Tony Blair said, "As you know, a report on the implementation of the G8 Action Programme on Forests will be considered in July. The UK will continue its efforts to tackle illegal logging, domestically, bilaterally and multilaterally and will encourage our G8 partners to do the same."
- Greenpeace letter to Tony Blair (20/6/2000) calling on him to act on his promises to stop the trade in illegal and destructive timber products available from the Greenpeace Press Office
- Greenpeace letter to buyers of WTK (Amaplac) plywood (20/6/2000) in the UK available from the Greenpeace Press Office.
