A recent letter from the Belgian lumber federation to the President of Interfor regarding the Great Bear Rainforest

Federation Belge du commerce d'importation de bois a.s.b.l.
Galerie du Centre-Bloc 1-5ème étage
Rue des Fripiers 15/17
1000 BRUXELLES Brussels

March 13 2001

M. DUNCAN DAVIS
PRESIDENT INTERNATIONAL FOREST PRODUCTS INTERFOR

Dear Sirs,

As you know, Greenpeace is e-mailing messages to the belgian importers from INTERFOR's wood products, giving a statement of facts prevailing in B.C. with regard to the further destruction of the pristine forests, the disappearance of species and the alteration of the biodiversity.

Their target is the region, so called the Great Bear Rainforest, in fact the central coast area and parts of the north coast of B.C.

The messages are clear, in order to ask the importers to abstain buying from your company as long as it is logging further pristine forests of those areas.

We remind this worrying subject was discussed during a Round Table grouping all partners concerned, on 20 May 1998 in Brussels.

Our statement concluded we were looking forward into a situation where lumber will come from B.C. with a certificate stating the lumber is harvested from sustainable managed forest excluding lumber originating in the Great Bear Forest until satisfactory solutions are agreed upon by all parties concerned.

In the meantime, some companies active in the same forest industry as INTERFOR, were not longer put under pressure by Greenpeace because now they carry out environmentally friendly forest management practices. We know you are doing efforts towards implementary sustainable forestry management in the clayoquot sound area but this isn't the incriminated one.

Greenpeace asks a moratorium before being ready for discussions with INTERFOR.

If no changes are occuring in the coming weeks, they will intensify their actions in the different countries where they have sent their message as well as here in Belgium by putting under pressure importers and consumers of INTERFOR's wood products.

As declared previously, we are facing a paradoxical: on the one hand, we are involved in the marketing on the most ecological material in the world: on the other hand, we are suffering from an unfriendly business environment, which will surely have negative effects on the consumption of timber in general and W.R.C. in particular.

Further, we would be drawn into an extremely difficult, probably even impossible, situation where it would be a question of marketing INTERFOR's wood products.

Finally, all depends of the acceptance of the moratorium in question.

In the meantime, we remain,
Yours Faithfully,

Vandecasteele houtimport
Stefaan Vandecasteele

Van Hoorebeke timber N.V.
Franz van Hoorebeke

Van Reeth houtinvoer N.V.
Luc Bourgois

Stevens ETN.& C°
Jan Stevens

c.c. Garrick S.L. Jay, Sales Manager
c.c. Slaco Ric, Chief Forester