Six Greenpeace volunteers today began their second day of occupation of the MV Enif to prevent it from unloading its cargo of criminal timber from the Amazon rainforest at London's Tilbury docks. The volunteers, who have been in action since 11.30 am Tuesday, are demanding that the cargo of rainforest plywood is returned to the Amazon and donated to local communities from the areas where it was logged.
One of the volunteers, Eduardo Quartim, from Greenpeace Brazil said, "Last night was very cold, wet and windy but we intend to stay here. We are all determined to protect the Amazon rainforest and put a stop to these criminal timber imports."
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.
Tony Blair has promised that the UK will tackle illegal logging domestically and will encourage the other big industrialised countries to do the same. He has so far failed to act. Every month up to 1400 tonnes of plywood from the Amazon ends up in the UK.
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Contact:
Greenpeace press office on 020 7865 8255
