The Timber Trade

Change Trade NOT the Climate!

Will Hutton's book, 'The World We're In', argues that firms and their staff have lost their way. For many, their original founding was based on a genuine purpose other than profit. Now they have profit as an overriding priority, rather than as an outcome of doing business.

Illegal-Logging is a crime against 'responsible' businesses and humanity as awhole!

Let us know if you know of any construction sites using illegal timber-its in all our interests!

Consider this…. If I hire a couple of blokes with automatic weapons, break into a garden center in Dublin, and take, at gun-point, fifty prize roses, I have committed a crime. If I drive those roses across the boarder to Belfast and sell them to ‘Don’t Care DIY Store’, ‘Don’t Care’ doesn't own them, and if it sells them suspecting I stole them, ‘Don’t Care DIY Store’ has also committed a crime.

If a logging contractor does the same thing in Tanzania, or the Amazon, and gets the wood to Ireland, they're home free. Same thing if they sell the logs in China and the mahogany, teak or bintangor, ends up in furniture in the ‘Furniture Heaven Shop’ in Tullamore or plywood in ‘McCarenot Timber Supplies’ in Bray. Illegal trade is one of the huge stories that has being ignored by industry, politicians, many governments and the mainstream media for too long. More than half of all tropical deforestation is estimated to be the result of illegal logging, and deforestation is causing 20% of total global CO2 emissions.

Irish Construction Companies
Numerous Irish construction companies are using timber and wood products (such as plywood) from boreal, temperate and tropical regions that may be the result of illegal-logging.

Are You One of Them? If you are and you want to make a difference this page is for you...[click here]

Be Aware That NEW EU Legislation is On The Way: A landmark deal was struck between the European Parliament, the EU member states and the European Commission on Wednesday 16th June 2010 that will see the banning of illegally logged timber from the EU market. The details of the ban and the legislation will be formally in place by November 2010 -WATCH THIS SPACE .

Around The World

Forests are the home and source of livelihoods for over 1.6 billion people, including Indigenous peoples, and forest-dependent communities.

Around the world, illegal logging, criminal exploitation and trade in forest resources are destroying forest ecosystems, undermining the livelihoods of local communities and depriving governments in transition of much-needed revenue.

Just Forests highlights the social, environmental, spiritual and economic importance of the world’s forests to society through our reliance/dependence on wood. Ireland’s booming construction industry uses vast amounts of tropical timber. Our insatiable appetite for tropical hardwoods like iroko and hardwood plywood (WBP & Marine) is having a negative effect on the world’s rainforests. It is estimated that *60% of all tropical timber entering the EU is coming from un-managed forests around the world and is illegally logged (*Stern Review).

Illegal logging causes environmental damage, promotes corruption, undermines the rule of law and good governance and funds armed conflict. It retards sustainable development in some of the poorest countries of the world. Consumer countries like Ireland contribute to these problems by importing timber and wood products without ensuring that they are legally sourced through credible third-party verification.

STOP ILLEGAL-LOGGING NOW-

If you know of a construction site that should be listed here contact us at: woodlife@justforests.org

Just Fair Trade Timber

 

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