Glasgow Council officials today (6th September) ordered contractors to stop work replacing hardwood floors during the Lottery funded refurbishment of Kelvingrove art gallery and museum, after nearly 100 Greenpeace activists invaded the site to expose the use of endangered rainforest timber.
Greenpeace forest campaigner Belinda Fletcher said,
"We are delighted that Kelvingrove art gallery and museum has agreed to suspend the contract for flooring after endangered rainforest timber was found on the site. We will be working closely with Kelvingrove to ensure that the rest of the timber used comes from legal and sustainable sources such as that certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)."
Greenpeace researchers had uncovered contractors using merbau timber from South East Asian rainforests, home to several endangered species including the orang-utan. The multi-million pound refurbishment of Kelvingrove, the most visited musuem outside London, is being mainly funded by the National Lottery. Greenpeace is calling on the National Lottery to clean-up its timber buying policies and is monitoring at least eleven other Lottery funded projects including Wembley stadium.
At around 8am nearly 100 Greenpeace activists entered the site and removed packs of the merbau timber after Junckers, the company supplying it, said documentation regarding the source of the timber 'does not exist'. They replaced the timber with Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified packs of hardwood flooring which are guaranteed to come from sustainable sources. At the same time four Greenpeace climbers scaled the building and hung a banner reading ' National Lottery - funding Rainforest Destruction'. After the decision to suspend the contract all the Greenpeace activists voluntarily left the site.
Since 2000 Government departments have been expected to buy timber from legal and sustainable sources. Ministers also claim that they give guidance to Non Departmental Public Bodies like the National Lottery but little effort has been made to translate these objectives into practice. Recently the £0 million Lottery funded Cardiff Millennium Stadium was found to have used uncertified timber decking from Africa's Forest of the Great Apes where illegal logging is rife and many gorillas and chimpanzees are at risk of being wiped out. In 2002 a Lottery grant went on new lock gates for the Kennet and Avon canal, which were built from rainforest timber sourced from a company involved in illegal arms dealing in Liberia, fuelling the civil war.
Further information
Please contact the Greenpeace Press Office on 07717 704577 or 0207 865 8255
