Archived press release

Timber Federation Misleads Public

15 December 1997

Friends of the Earth is today launching a new web site to counter the timber industry's misleading, and in one case completely incorrect, information about the situation in the world's forests, and the impact of logging and timber consumption.

The FOE web site, at http://www.foe.co.uk/camps/biohab/ttf/home is a direct counter to the Timber Trade Federation (TTF) web site.

For example, the TTF web site states (on its Fact File page) “....the world is experiencing a steady increase in forest area”. This is completely wrong - the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) study that the TTF referenced reported a net decrease of forest and other wooded lands of 1.1 million ha a year. FOE wrote to the TTF about this mistake in August. The TTF acknowledged that their web site was wrong; however, as of Friday 12 December, this serious error had still not been corrected.

The TTF states: “Ghana, for instance, provides a good illustration of how tropical forests can be managed to ensure a long term supply of timber”. However, the most recent FAO figures put the annual deforestation rate in Ghana at 1.3%, one of the highest in Africa. In a recent study, Friends of the Earth Ghana estimated that one third of all logs in Ghana are harvested illegally and that, if exploitation continues at the current rate, the twelve species in most demand will become extinct by 2006.

Illegal logging is a major problem for the world's forests. The TTF states that it is “....difficult to refute that some timber may be wrongfully extracted”. In fact, the situation is far more serious than that: in June 1997 a leaked document from the Brazilian Government stated that 80% of all timber extracted from the Brazilian Amazon comes from illegal sources.

The FOE web site is linked to the TTF site, allowing visitors to click between the two and see the contrasting views. FOE has written to the TTF, requesting that they link their web site to the FOE site, so that people visiting the TTF site can click easily to the FOE site.

Dr Georgina Green of Friends of the Earth said:

“Its time the timber trade was honest about the continued destruction of the world's forests and their part in it, rather than misleading people into thinking everything is OK. We are particularly appalled that the Timber Trade Federation continue to use information about an increase in global forest area to promote their products, when they know it is completely false.”

ENDS

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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust