Archived press release

"VIETNAMESE" GARDEN FURNITURE SCAM EXPOSED. Shoppers Told: Boycott it to Save Cambodia

30 March 1999

So-called “Vietnamese” garden furniture is on sale in garden centres throughout the country and is also being sold by the chain stores Argos and Cargo HomeShop. Illegal logging is the greatest threat to Cambodia's forests. Global Witness has extensive documentary, photographic and video evidence of a thriving illegal logging trade across the Vietnam/Cambodia border [2]. There is also footage of British importers and wholesalers admitting that environmental claims about the timber cannot be justified.

By the end of 1997 almost seven million hectares of Cambodia's land area had been allocated as concessions to loggers, covering virtually all the country's forests. The Cambodian forests are home to many endangered species such as elephants, Javan rhinoceros, tigers and bears. Logging also silts up rivers and streams, causing flooding and droughts. Local communities suffer also because logging damages farming and fishing. Logging is carried out under the protection of armed groups, dominated by the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces. Villagers are routinely denied access to logging concessions which have taken over land and forests on which they have relied for their livelihoods for many generations. Forestry officials are regularly intimidated by those involved in illegal logging, some have even been murdered. The World Bank has now warned that Cambodia's forests could be commercially logged out within five years.

In 1997, revenues from forestry returned less than $13 million to the Cambodian national budget. The 1997 loss to the budget from illegal logging has been estimated at $184

million. Much of this money funds Cambodia's ”parallel” military budget.

Sarah Tyack, Forest Campaigner for Friends of the Earth said:
“To buy so-called Vietnamese garden furniture is to play an unwitting part in the continuing destruction of Cambodia's rainforest. Shoppers should say no to 'Vietnamese' garden furniture and no to the destruction and misery that this trade brings. We are also calling on stores such as Argos to stop selling garden furniture from Vietnam immediately. The only way to be sure that your garden furniture is from well managed forests is to buy UK produced timber, or timber products which carry the Forest Stewardship Council logo” [3] .

Patrick Alley, of Global Witness said:
"Cambodia's forests are being used as a personal bank account by Cambodia's and Vietnam's political, military and Mafia style business leaders, with severe social, ecological and economic implications for the country and its people. By refusing to buy Vietnamese garden furniture, the British consumer can send a clear message to the garden furniture trade and to these leaders that they do not want to support human rights and environmental abuses funded by illegal logging".



[1] Friends of the Earth, jointly with Global Witness, is launching a campaign nationwide to highlight the impacts of this trade on rainforests and people. Global Witness is a human rights and environmental group which has conducted investigations into the Cambodian and Vietnamese timber trade, and produced a report called “Made in Vietnam - Cut in Cambodia”.For copies of the report call Global Witness on 020 7272 6731.

[2] As well as alarming rates of deforestation in Cambodia, Vietnam currently loses around 200,000 hectares of forest annually. Logging is the main cause of forest loss and at current rates the forests will be gone within 50 years. Due to the depletion of their forests, Vietnam now imports illegally from Cambodia.

[3] The Forest Stewardship Council accredits well managed forests in temperate and tropical forests worldwide according to a set of high forest management principles that have been agreed by a diverse group of environmental, human rights and community based organisations, the timber trade, forestry profession and forest certification bodies. For further information call 01686 413916.

If you're a journalist looking for press information please contact the Friends of the Earth media team on 020 7566 1649.

Published by Friends of the Earth Trust