FRENCH COMMANDOS ARREST GREENPEACE ACTIVISTS IN HONFLEUR, FRANCE: MV Aquitania abandons port without offloading Amazon criminal timber

29 July 2000

HONFLEUR, FRANCE -- Six Greenpeace activists preventing the offloading of criminal Amazon timber from two multinational companies, Lapeyre and WTK, were arrested by the French special police in the port of Honfleur in France this morning. Despite the removal of the activists, the Aquitania was unable to prolong its stay in the port, and was forced to leave Honfleur without offloading its criminal cargo.

Three teams of over 20 masked police used Search and Rescue Team equipment to remove the activists who had been occupying the three cranes of the cargo vessel Aquitania for 27 hours. The Australian activist Madeleine Habib was subjected to force by special police as they tried to remove her from the cables of one of the cranes. When the Aquitania had to leave Honfleur, she was still attached to one of the ship's masts. She was later removed and arrested on the high seas by the special police.

The activists had occupied the cranes since 8 am yesterday morning to prevent the unloading of containers loaded with timber from Amaplac/WTK and Eldorado/Lapeyre. Both companies have been exposed by Greenpeace for their involvement in the illegal production and trade of timber from the Brazilian Amazon (1). Greenpeace was demanding that the criminal timber be returned to Brazil.

"As long as companies like Lapeyre and WTK continue their role in the illegal timber trade, we will do everything within our power to stop them," said Greenpeace Amazon markets campaigner Phil Aikman. "We are committed to stopping the trade in criminal timber from the world's ancient forests. The only way that a company can guarantee that its wood does not come from illegal or destructive logging practices, is through a commitment to buy only from legal and sustainable sources such as those certified to Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) standards (2)."

The French joinery giant Lapeyre - part of the Saint Gobain Group - owns the Brazilian company Eldorado which Greenpeace has exposed for its role in trading in illegal Amazonian wood. The Malaysian Group WTK owns the Brazilian company Amaplac which has also been exposed by Greenpeace, and is currently under investigation by the Federal Prosecutor in Amazonas State (3).

The action in Honfleur follows sustained campaigning in recent months against the import of wood from illegal and destructive logging in the world's remaining ancient forests - particularly into G-8 countries and the European Union. It follows earlier actions against Amaplac in the UK, Germany and Denmark, and a four-month campaign against Lapeyre, which has included protests at the company's retail outlets in France, Spain, Belgium and Switzerland, and the release of Greenpeace's alternative Lapeyre catalogue and website www.lapeyre.org/destruction at the company's AGM in May this year.

The activists have been taken into police custody in Honfleur. The arrestees include Flavio Montiel, Greenpeace Forest Campaigner based in Brazil.

Notes to editors

(1) See Against the Law: the G8 and the illegal timber trade. Greenpeace International

(2) The FSC is the only independent certification system that meets international ecological standards, incorporates the interests of social, economic and environmental groups and has a
widely recognised label. This system assures the chain of custody from the extraction of the wood, through processing to the final consumer. Unless independently certified at least according to the ecological standards of the FSC, it is not possible to guarantee that logging practices are legal and do not lead to ancient forest destruction.

(3) During the official hearings, Amaplac representatives confirmed that they are totally dependent on third party log suppliers, and that they have never visited any of the forest holdings belonging to those suppliers.