NEWS RELEASE 15 MARCH 2001

NOT JUST THE POLITICIANS – BUT ALL OF US ARE DESTROYING TROPICAL FORESTS THROUGH TIMBER IMPORTS

Not just the Beehive but the whole country has swung into using unsustainably produced tropical timber, the Ecologic Foundation said today.

Ecologic’s executive director Guy Salmon said that there were big increases in imports of wooden furniture and other wood products from tropical countries, and these reflected reduced production from New Zealand’s native forests.

With the Government’s decision not to allow any sustainable wood production from publicly-owned native forests, New Zealanders were being forced to join the world’s unsustainable rampage through the remaining tropical forests, he said.

“Like the Japanese, we are preserving what we have at home and destroying other people’s forests.”

Mr Salmon said that the value of imported wooden furniture, which was around $20 million for many years up to 1993, had grown five-fold to $103 million last year.

Two-thirds of that was from tropical countries, none of which was independently certified as being sustainably produced, he said

There were smaller but still significant increases in imports of other tropical wood products, including paneling and mouldings for decorative uses such as that in the Beehive publicized yesterday.

“Given that a democratic country can’t make the use of radiata pine compulsory, New Zealanders need to ask themselves how they are going to live sustainably when it comes to wood products.

“We might be better to allow some carefully controlled, sustainable harvest from our own native forests rather than allowing consumer demand for specialty woods to drive the uncontrolled ransacking of diminishing and valuable tropical rainforests.

“The environment movement used to have a slogan – ‘think globally – act locally.’ Unfortunately, too many green supporters have forgotten the ‘think globally’ bit.”

…ends

For further information please contact Guy Salmon on 025 201 3033.

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>