SOME of Britain鈥檚 largest paper and timber buyers agreed last week to pressurise their Scandinavian suppliers to safeguard the last remnants of the region鈥檚 ancient forests. At a meeting in London, environmental campaigners reached agreement with a number of companies, including Sainsbury鈥檚, BBC Magazines and the B&Q DIY chain, on ways they could avoid buying timber from old-growth forests.
The companies agreed to press their Scandinavian suppliers for precise details of where their timber comes from so that they can check against a list of old-growth areas in each of the three Nordic countries provided by environmentalists. 鈥淚f we find that any of our supplies are coming from somewhere mentioned on the list, we鈥檒l stop buying it,鈥� says George White from Sainsbury鈥檚. 鈥淚t鈥檚 just not worth being associated with that kind of destruction.鈥�
Until recently, Scandinavian forestry was widely seen as one of the 鈥済reenest鈥� in the world. But environmentalists argue that loggers have been transforming the rich, ancient forests into impoverished ones in which noncommercial species are discouraged. The campaign to persuade companies to boycott timber from these areas is being coordinated by the Taiga Rescue Network, an umbrella group of Scandinavian green organisations, with support in Britain from the Women鈥檚 Environmental Network and Reforest the Earth.
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The network says that only between 2 and 5 per cent of old-growth forest remains throughout Scandinavia. Its ecological value lies in its mix of tree species of all ages, and its relatively high proportion of dead and decaying timber, important habitats for insects and fungi, many of which are now on the endangered list. In Norway for example, loss of habitat has placed 898 forest species on the country鈥檚 Red Data List of endangered species, about half of the country鈥檚 total. More than 75 per cent of Scandinavian timber is exported to Britain and Western Europe.
The campaigners highlighted a number of key old-growth areas which they say have been logged recently. These include Kuusamo in Kainuu, near the Finnish border with Russia, where some of the trees are more than 600 years old, and Valtimo, in Finnish Karelia, one of the few remaining habitats of the rare flying squirrel. Scandinavia is also importing increasing quantities of wood from old-growth forests in Russian Karelia and then exporting it. Major Finnish paper companies have bought timber from all these forests. The paper company Enso Gutzeit has told its customers that it does not buy any timber from 鈥減rimeval forests鈥�. An Enso spokesman told New 杏吧原创 that it did not buy from 鈥渃ontroversial鈥� areas. It refused to say whether it worked in old-growth forests.
In Sweden, the S枚dra forestry cooperative has promised not to take timber from Ratj盲rnskogen in southern Sweden, one of the old-growth forests on the environmentalists鈥� list. And in Britain, B&Q has cancelled a contract with the Finnish company P枚lkky Oy, because it could not be sure where the timber was coming from.
Kaisa Raitio, of the Finnish Nature League, dismissed claims by several large exporters that they could not trace their timber all the way back to the forest. 鈥淚f we can get in our car and follow the logging truck from the forest to the sawmill or paper mill, it must be possible for the major companies to trace their timber鈥檚 origins. If their customers demand it, the companies will have to respond.鈥�
Members of the league stencilled 鈥渙ld growth timber鈥� on the ends of newly cut logs in Kuusamo. 鈥淭he foresters left those logs alone for six months,鈥� said Raitio. 鈥淏ut then they simply sliced off the stencilled end and took the rest.鈥�
The environmentalists are not calling for a boycott of Scandinavian timber, or even of particular companies, says Roger Olsson of the Taiga Rescue Network. 鈥淲e鈥檙e quite happy to see our forests as providing an industrial raw material.鈥� The long-term answer, he said, is for timber to be independently certified as coming from sustainably managed forests. But action is needed now to protect the dwindling remnants of old-growth forest.
If the latest moves fail to make an impression in the next six months, says Angie Zelter of Reforest the Earth, the campaigners would start a campaign of direct action against British paper and timber buyers and retailers, including occupying offices and shops.