Ancient forests are the living expression of billions of years of evolution. Home to millions of types of plants and animals, these forests sustain as much as 90% of the world's land-based species - everything from owls to orchids and bears to beetles.
Four Greenpeace volunteers today ended their vigil occupying the MV Enif at London's Tilbury docks in the face of a legal injunction from the owners of the ship. The volunteers were immediately arrested by police after climbing down from the top of a crane. The 75 hour vigil was the longest in the history of Greenpeace in the UK and was partt of a global campaign to stop the traffic in criminal timber from the Amazon rainforest. The volunteers are demanding that the ship's cargo of criminal rainforest plywood is returned to the Amazon.
We've all heard about the Amazon; we know it's bigger than Western Europe; that in 1 hectare you can find 200 types of tree & more plant species than in the whole of Europe; that a single tree may be the home for 72 kinds of ant and not forgetting we are discovering new species continually.
Few can dispute the damage caused by clearcut logging the world's ancient forests. But what can be done to tackle the problem? 
