Campaigners from the group scaled the Admiralty Arch wing of the building, which is being refurbished, to hang a banner declaring “Repeat Offender! Blair’s trashed another rainforest!” Other activists covered plywood hoardings allegedly made using illegal timber with Forest Stewardship Council-certified plywood.
Greenpeace, which performed similar protests at government buildings in 2002 and 2003, claims the plywood features bintangor and red canarium face veneers made from logs illegally harvested in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and the Solomon Islands.
The protest also involved activists hoisting their own campaign flag on the Admiralty Arch flagpole and PNG national Sam Moko taking some of the plywood to Downing Street.
“It’s hard to believe illegal and unsustainable timber has been found at the home of his [Tony Blair’s] own strategy unit,” said Greenpeace executive director Stephen Tindale.
“What better illustration could there be that his government’s timber procurement policy is totally ineffectual.”
