Ancient forests around the world are in peril, but we can still save them. Governments and the timber industry need to understand what a crucial role they play in maintaining global biodiversity, not to mention how vital they are in regulating the climate, so they need to act now.
And as consumers, we can all help to save the forests. Making sure that the wood and paper we buy has come from well-managed sources (or, even better, is 100 per cent recycled) is something we can all easily do.
As an international organisation, we can campaign to protect forests in two key ways. Firstly, we take action by investigating the scene of the crime in places like Indonesia and the Amazon, where destructive and illegal logging is taking place. Secondly, by exposing those responsible for destruction, we take action in consumer countries like the UK that are creating a demand for cheap wood and agricultural products.
Ancient forests around the world are at risk from a range of man-made threats including destructive and illegal logging, agriculture and climate change. Unchecked, these will destroy the last remaining forests, possibly within our lifetimes. But there are ways we can avert the crisis and preserve what remains of these fragile landscapes.
We are destroying ancient forests at an unprecedented rate. As demand for anything made from wood increases - whether it's books, furniture, construction materials or even toilet paper - we risk stripping away the last remaining ancient forest areas.
Posted by jamie — 7 November 2006 at 7:11pm
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The global campaign to highlight how food companies were complicit in destroying the Amazon rainforest through their use of Amazon-grown soya made headlines around the world and clearly touched the hearts of Radio 4 listeners because we've been nominated for a gong in their Food and Farming Awards.
Most of the categories are turned over to shops and producers who go that extra mile in provide quality grub but we come under the Derek Cooper Special Award for, and I quote, "their work raising awareness of the ethical and environmental dimensions of food production, in particular their soya campaign". It was a public vote that got us into the nominations but it's the steely minds of the judging panel that will make the final decision, and with distinguished competition in the form of the Caroline Walker Trust and the Rt Hon Michael Meacher MP, it'll be tough. Tune in Sunday 26 November to see if we win.
Posted by admin — 28 September 2006 at 8:00am
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You couldn't make it up. After having been exposed no less than three times already for using illegal timber in their building projects, Tony Blair's government has done it again.
Posted by jamie — 25 September 2006 at 8:00am
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The Golden Chainsaws are becoming something of a Greenpeace tradition. They're not annual, they're not voted for by a secret cabal of society members, but when it comes to wanton destruction of forest landscapes, they ensure the efforts of those responsible do not go unremarked.
Whilst the Finnish government tries to assure the world that it upholds principles of sustainable forest management and forest protection, it continues to launder illegally and unsustainably logged Russian timber through its border into the European market and beyond.
Between June and August 2006, Greenpeace documented widespread illegal logging in the Russian Karelian Republic and the subsequent transport of illegally logged timber into Finalnd.
