Greenpeace activists have been condemned for a protest at the North Edinburgh Arts Centre which frightened school children waiting to see a show.

The activists said their “action” at the Centre was intended to highlight that the merbau, a non-CITES listed timber, used in flooring and panelling is a threatened species from endangered rainforest.

But, the Centre’s audience development manager Mareike Holfeld condemned the protest and said it was counter-productive.

“Obviously we agree it would be wrong to use endangered wood, but the action was not the way to to get the message across and brings us against Greenpeace,” she said. “They came into the building saying that we were criminals and taking photos. They scared away 60 children who were waiting to go into a show. This is not the way to get their message across.”

She said the Arts Centre would be writing to Greenpeace.

“We believe they should be rethinking their protests. They came in here for 30 seconds and left everyone puzzled and confused. They should be taking their arguments to timber suppliers, not targeting projects like ours.”

She added that the Arts Centre had received assurances that the merbau was from a non-endangered source and this was confirmed by Alisdair Clements of the Edinburgh-based project architect Zoo.

Also on October 7 Greenpeace targeted the Playfair Project in Edinburgh. Here they claimed that sapele used for the doors was a species being “pushed towards extinction” and sourced from rainforests in Central Africa, “home to chimpanzees and gorillas”, although they later acknowledged to TTJ they had not tracked the timber back to its precise source.

Greenpeace forests campaigner Nathan Argent admitted he did not know precisely where the timber had come from or what sort of sourcing documentation was supplied, but he insisted that all timber used in National Lottery and local authority funded refurbishment or building projects should be FSC-certified.

“There are FSC-approved alternatives like jatoba,” he said.

Greenpeace targeted both the Edinburgh projects because they had received money from the National Lottery. The actions form part of a new campaign and followed a recent protest at the lottery-backed Kelvingrove Art Gallery in Glasgow.

“If we don’t want to confine the world’s rainforests to history, it is essential that in the future all National Lottery and local authority projects in theUK insist on FSC timber,” said Mr Argent.