'Suspect' timber found in EU building projects

The European commission is being urged to adopt environmental legislation to prevent illegal timber from being sold on the European market.

The demand follows an investigation by Friends of the Earth which discovered illegal or “destructively logged” timber in four EU construction projects.

The group says the timber originated from the Amazon, Central Africa, Russia and Indonesia, where large-scale illegal and destructive logging takes place and timber is purchased from suppliers that engage in illegal logging.

The findings come in a Friends of the Earth report, 'Building on forest destruction: Timber use in EU financed building projects' which will be presented to EU environment commissioner, Stavros Dimas.

Friends of the Earth Netherlands investigated timber use in construction projects financed by the EU and in buildings which house the commission.

Spruce, meranti, ipé and azobé wood species were found, lacking certification of legal or sustainable forest management.

The group says the meranti wood originated from areas where up to 80 per cent of logging is illegal.

The azobé wood was supplied by Cameroonian and Italian logging companies who have logged illegally in Cameroon.

Since 2003 the commission has been working on an action plan to combat illegal logging and trade, but no legislation has yet been adopted.

Anne van Schaik, campaign leader at Friends of the Earth Netherlands, said, "The commission is not even able to keep illegal and destructively logged timber out of its own construction projects.

“Ancient forests are being chopped down at a furious pace for our buildings when they should be housing a huge variety of animals and plants, such as the great apes in Central Africa.”

Friends of the Earth say that illegal logging and its related trade is a major cause of the worldwide disappearance of 13m hectares of forests per year, approximately equal to the surface area of Greece.

Deforestation leads to a loss of biodiversity and increases the poverty of at least a billion people who are dependent on the forests for their livelihood.

The group claims that half the timber imported by the EU from the high-risk areas - Central Africa, the Amazon, Russia and Indonesia - has been logged illegally.

Production countries miss out on bn in annual income due to illegal logging, eight times as much as development aid to the forestry sector in developing countries.

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