Ireland should play fair and outlaw trade in illegal timber

I WAS in Paris on Wednesday, November 18, 2009.

It’s a day I will never forget.

What I saw and heard was scandalous, it sickened me. I sat in awe as one by one the players painted a picture of human rights abuse on a grand scale. And no, I am not referring to the World Cup playoff between Ireland and France. Beside this, the football controversy pales into insignificance.

I was there to witness and support the press announcement of the lodgement of a complaint by Global Witness before a French public prosecutor against one of the world’s leading timber and wood products wholesalers.

The complaint graphically spelled out that, during the civil war in Liberia from 2000-2003, the company knowingly bought vast quantities of “conflict” timber from unscrupulous Liberian companies that provided support to Charles Taylor’s brutal regime and sold it on to other timber traders across Europe.

By importing timber from forest concessions operated by unscrupulous and corrupt logging companies, the French arm of the company stands accused of the handling of and profiting from goods obtained from logging concessions operating illegally and in an environmentally destructive manner.

EU countries still import large quantities of illegally logged timber and wood-based products with complete impunity.

European states need to implement legislation to stop this scandal and judges need to come down hard on any proven illegal behaviour. Ireland is a significant player in this field as an estimated 60% of all tropical timber used in this country is deemed to be of illegal origin.

We in Just Forests are calling for a in national timber procurement policy to be put in place immediately in order to stop this destructive practice. We want the selling of and profiting from illegal timber to be an offence and severely punished under Irish law.

It’s an astonishing fact that an area of rainforest the size of Croke Park disappears every second. That’s 86,400 Croke Park pitches of rainforest destroyed every day, or over 31 million Croke Park pitches of rainforest lost every year.

Illegal logging is often seen as one of the driving forces. It’s time to play fair and give people in developing countries a fair deal and fair price for their forest resources.

Just like football, there are certain rules, caps and goals we must abide by and obey if we are to deal effectively with biodiversity decline and abject poverty and avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

Ensuring that our timber needs comes from responsibly managed forests is part of the solution.

I urge your readers to be as passionate about affording developing countries “fair play” for their resources as they were about the outcome of the match in Paris.

Tom Roche

Coordinator

Just Forests

Rathcobican

Rhode

Co Offaly