Causes
Partners in crime: the UK timber trade, Chinese sweatshops and Malaysian robber barons in Papua New Guinea’s rainforest
The environmental and social costs of illegal logging and plywood production from Papua New Guinea’s rainforests
Authors:
; Greenpeace
Publisher:
Greenpeace International, 2005
This document traces the production of Chinese hardwood and plywood from its origins in the forests of Papua New Guinea to the sweatshops of China and on to British builders and merchants.
Based on investigations by Greenpeace, the document accuses the UK timber trade of fuelling illegal production of plywood and hardwood thus encouraging the destruction of Papua New Guinea’s rainforests. Greenpeace argue that this trade jeopardises the legal trade in socially just and environmentally friendly plywood products.
The document outlines both environmental and social repercussions of this trade. Highlighting the abundance of natural resources to be found in the rainforest the paper argues that these are priceless to extractive industries. However the termination of illegal logging is vital for the preservation of one of the last remaining ancient forests, its biodiversity and indigenous population. Furthermore the trade in illegal logging is linked to the exploitation of workers at logging sites and plywood production in china.
Greenpeace calls for the following action:
- the UK and European governments must immediately ban the import of illegal timber
- individual retailers must immediately cease retailing plywood where responsibility and legal logging practices can not be guaranteed
- timber traders should adopt purchasing policies which support environmentally responsible and just forest practices.
