Customary PNG landowner asks the timber trade to source 'good' wood
Today, Brian Baring, of the Gingilang clan on the north coast of Papua New Guinea (PNG), delivered a giant letter to Alchemy Partners, asking them to stop daughter company Montague L Meyer from trashing PNG's rainforests for plywood. Logging in PNG is some of the worst on the planet, with virtually all industrial logging being illegal.
Customary Landowner Brian Baring says, "I have seen our forests destroyed by foreign companies. They do not respect us or our culture, or our sacred sites. They run over our food gardens with their machinery. They drive their trucks and bulldozers through our streams polluting it with oil and mud with no regard that people downstream drink from those streams. They take the trees they want and destroy many many more to get to the trees they want."
Read Brian's account of how illegal logging is destroying the Gingilang way of life
The magnificent Paradise Forest of PNG is home to wildlife such as the tree kangaroo and the largest butterfly on earth - the Queen Alexandra's birdwing, with a wing span of over 11 inches - as well as millions of indigenous people who depend on this forest for their livelihood and way of life. Yet logging companies are voraciously plundering the rainforest, and the country could be logged out in 15 years.
He continued "I am in Europe to bring the message of my people to companies like Alchemy Partners and Montague Meyer and ask them to stop buying products that are made from the forests of Papua New Guinea, stolen from our land and our people."
Last year a major Greenpeace investigation uncovered a criminal trail of illegally logged rainforest timber from the world's largest tropical island, which is 'laundered' through China before arriving on shop shelves in the UK. Since then many companies, like Wolseley Build Centers, have agreed to remove all Chinese tropical hardwood plywood from their stores, however Montague L Meyer continues to sell it into the UK market place. Recent microscopic analysis of timber sold by the company has confirmed that it is made of Bintangor and other tropical species.
Greenpeace launches Forest Rescue station in PNG
During his UK trip, Mr Baring and Greenpeace also met members of the Timber Trade Federation (1) who have suspended trade in plywood made from PNG's rainforests and discussed the sourcing of more environmentally and socially responsible products.
Belinda Fletcher, Greenpeace Campaigner said, "The Timber Trade Federation has recognized that sourcing from Papua New Guinea (PNG) is currently unacceptable. They are now looking at domestic Chinese alternatives that are not sourced from ancient forests. Montague Meyer is one of the pariahs of the UK trade who continue to source from PNG."
She continued "There are good alternatives. Buy timber certified by the Forest Stewardship Council - it's the best way to guarantee that timber has come from environmentally and socially responsible sources."
Greenpeace is calling for legislation to ban the import of illegal timber into the UK and Europe and to ensure that all timber imports are legal and from well managed forests.
Notes
(1) Attendees included representatives of the Timber Trade Federation, Caledonian Plywood, FEPCO, Premier Forest Products and Graeme Holburn.
