I had a definite dose of green déjà vu the other week. Greenpeace were at it again, protesting about allegedly uncertified timber products used in a government building project. Demonstrators surrounded the Home Office development in London and abseiled down cranes to drape banners condemning the area as a “Rainforest Demolition Site”. The climbers hung about until the government, while admitting nothing, agreed to investigate the source of the timber.
At first glance, it looked like a mirror image of Greenpeace’s ‘action’ at the Cabinet Office last year. The banners were similar, and the argument, that only FSC-certified wood products should be used, was identical.
On closer inspection however, there were subtle differences.
Firstly, the greens were not protesting about construction timber or joinery, but the plywood hoardings and shuttering. Of course, this performs a vital function and environment minister Michael Meacher himself pledged recently that the government’s environmental criteria for timber procurement should apply to all material used in construction. But you can’t help feeling that Greenpeace was trying to trip the government up – “if we can’t get them on the timber in the building, we’ll get them on the hoarding”.
There was also devil in the detail of the Greenpeace press statement. One company cited as supplying the plywood was accused, not of illegal logging, but of treating its workers poorly.
If true, that’s clearly bad. But it’s not an allegation that can be used solely to condemn the timber industry. More importantly, it wasn’t the story given to the public. What they got exclusively was the sexy, headline-grabbing message that the tyrannical timber trade was once more wrecking the rainforest. That smacks of oversimplification and publicity-hunting spin.
On the day the protest began, the UK industry met under the auspices of the Timber Trade Federation to discuss Indonesia, a follow-up to a TTF mission to the country and its consultative role in the anti-illegal logging measures agreed by Indonesian and UK governments. This really was constructive action to try to save the rainforests, with proposed strategies combining conservation and sustainable commercial management. The trouble was, it lacked an abseiling opportunity.
