New Zealand: Greenpeace’s good wood guide

Greenpeace Good Wood Guide launched; making it easy to give forest
friendly gifts this Christmas. Indonesia is New Zealand’s biggest
source of tropical timber imports (1). Indonesia’s forests are being
logged faster than any other forested nation and globally
deforestation contributes approximately 20 per cent of global
greenhouse gas emissions, it is through this deforestation that
Indonesia and Brazil are 3rd and 4th respectively as the world’s
biggest greenhouse gas emitters. “It’s not hard to buy ‘good wood’ as
there are plenty of different products available. Before you shop
check out www.goodwoodguide.org.nz and our updated outdoor furniture
guide.

By buying the right timber you can feel safe in the knowledge
you’re helping to save tropical forests, indigenous communities, the
earth’s climate and unique animals like orangutans. “The updated
outdoor furniture guide showed improvements in ranking by several
major retailers including PlaceMakers, Smiths City, Bunnings, Farmers
and Big Save and showed commitment to the phasing out of the most
controversial timber kwila. It’s great to see the business sector
responding, but Government laws must be developed to ‘level the
playing field’ and stop companies importing illegal or destructively
logged timber,” concluded Rosoman. The worst wood on the market which
is used extensively for both outdoor furniture and decking is the
tropical timber kwila, and most of the kwila on the market is from
illegal sources in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. (2) Greenpeace
estimates that approximately NZ$20 million of kwila sawn timber,
decking and outdoor furniture is imported into New Zealand every year.
The NZ Government policy on illegal timber imports claims that kwila
makes up about 80% of the illegal trade in wood products in New
Zealand. Last year Greenpeace released a report on the status of kwila
called ‘Merbau’s last Stand’, which predicts kwila will be extinct in
the wild within 35 years if current logging trends continue. (3)
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0812/S00254.htm

Posted via email from Deane’s posterous