logging

Illegally logged timber from the rainforests of Papua New Guinea is being used during renovation work at the Houses of Parliament.

Greenpeace investigators have found the timber, in the form of at least two tonnes of plywood, in the £5million restructuring of the Press Area. The rainforest wood is protecting floors, stairs and walls while work is being carried out.[1]

And this is the fourth time in as many years that Greenpeace has revealed that the Government is using illegal and unsustainable timber.[2]

London - 19 September 2006: A Greenpeace International report released today reveals how illegally logged timber from Russia is being freely imported into Finland to factories including those of Stora Enso, which is partly owned by the Finnish State.

In its report, Partners in Crime: A Greenpeace Investigation into Finland's Illegal Timber Trade with Russia, Greenpeace has documented wide-spread illegal logging in the Russian Republic of Karelia.(1)

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.

London/Vancouver, February 7th, 2006 - Greenpeace applauded today's news that a third of Canada's unique Great Bear Rainforest is to be saved from the chainsaws. Following a decade of campaigning by Greenpeace, other leading environmental groups [1] and indigenous First Nations, the British Columbian Government has pledged to fully protect two million hectares of the ancient forest [2] and to dramatically improve bad logging practices in the rest of the forest.

LUXEMBOURG: Greenpeace activists will today (24th October) send a clear message to EU agriculture and development ministers meeting in Luxembourg and Leeds (UK): that unless they prohibit illegal timber imports to the EU and support sustainable forest management globally, their efforts to stop illegal logging will not end rainforest destruction in the poorest regions of the world. Farm Ministers are due to reach a political agreement on voluntary measures to combat illegal logging and support forest governance reform in timber-producing countries [1].

Flagship Government offices were today (19th October) blockaded by Greenpeace in protest at the tonnes of illegal timber from the world's last rainforests that continues to flood into the UK.

The Government has known about the illegal trade for years, yet has failed to do anything to stop illegal timber entering the UK.

Greenpeace activists in Rome today appealed to the Finnish Prime Minister to save the Sàmi reindeer forests in Northern Finland . The activists unfurled a banner - Stop Trashing Sàmi Reindeer Forests - at the UN headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Wood chips were deposited in front of the building to highlight the fact that the Finnish government is turning the reindeer forests into wood chips for pulp and paper production.

Rainforest cargo escorted into UK under huge police protection

Greenpeace is demanding that the UK Government seizes a huge cargo of illegal timber from Indonesia's rainforests, where logging is threatening the survival of orang-utans and tigers.