Greenpeace takes EU to task over deforestation

The environmental group Greenpeace has unveiled a 12-metre Amazon tree outside the commission’s headquarters as part of its ongoing campaign against deforestation.

The trunk, taken from an area allegedly illegally deforested in the Brazilian Amazon, houses nine video monitors projecting “images of beauty and destruction” from the area.

EU environment commissioner Stavros Dimas and other politicians were expected to visit the installation on Wednesday when they received a plywood postcard with the message: ‘Stop the chainsaw massacre! Adopt EU timber law now.’

Greenpeace says the installation highlights “Europe’s role in fuelling deforestation” and the need for legislation to ban illegal timber and establish higher standards for wood products.

Later this month the commission will vote on whether to put forward a new law against illegally harvested timber.

Sebastien Risso, Greenpeace’s EU forest campaigner said, “We urgently need this new law to regulate the timber market so that consumers are not made unwilling accomplices of forest crimes.

“It is unthinkable that forest ecosystems are degraded for the sake of cheap garden furniture, paper tissues and disposable construction material.”

The group says that every year the EU buys millions of tonnes of timber from areas, such as the Amazon, South-East Asia and Congo, where it says illegal and destructive logging is rampant.

Risso said these practices drive deforestation, which in turn leads to the dramatic loss of species and the upheaval of local communities, and accounts for a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions.

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