GREENPEACE ACTIVISTS PUT THEMSELVES ON THE LINE TO STOP CRIMINAL TIMBER IMPORTS

11 July 2000 Leixoes (Portugal)

During the early hours of Tuesday, the Greenpeace volunteers who had occupied the cargo vessel Aegis have been assaulted and their lives endangered by the Portuguese police, while policemen on land have threatened to shoot at Greenpeace inflatables currently preventing the Aegis from berthing at the port of Leixoes in northern Portugal. At the same time, Greenpeace activists from the Rainbow Warrior in Kobe Harbour (Japan) boarded and occupied the ship Manzanillo carrying 11 containers of plywood from the Amazon rainforest. Both activities expose the worldwide criminal import of timber and illegal logging practices on the eve of the G8 Foreign Ministers Meeting where this issue is on the agenda.

On the evening of July 10, four Greenpeace volunteers, together with the environmental group Quercu,s had boarded the Aegis as it transported logs and timber from the Cameroonian rainforest where destructive logging is the norm, and illegal logging practices are commonplace. The criminal logs and timber on board the vessel include timber coming from SFID (Société Industrielle et Forestière de la Doumé) - a subsidiary of the French logging giant Rougier - which had been found to be logging illegally in Cameroon only two weeks ago . In Japan the logging company EIDAI has been involved in illegal logging too.

In an effort to prevent the vessel from docking and unloading its criminal cargo, the volunteers on the Aegis had secured themselves to the crane supports. A further six volunteers, including volunteers from the Portugese group Quercus, chained themselves to the bridge at the entrance to the port and unfurled a banner that read "Stop the Criminal Timber Trade". Meanwhile, activists in four Greenpeace inflatables acted as a human barrier to stop the 13 thousand-tonne ship from berthing. The activists have managed to "rename" the Aegis "African Forest Crime" using white paint.

Several hours into their vigil aboard the Aegis, Greenpeace volunteers have been threatened by Portuguese police, and so far at least two of the volunteers - both female - have been assaulted while secured to crane supports 30 m above the deck. One has been kicked and dragged by her hair; another's life was seriously endangered as police tried to remove the carabenas, which secured her above the 30 m drop.

On land, Portuguese police have threatened to shoot at the four inflatables. The activists were given a five-minute warning to clear the area, but the vigil persists. Two of the volunteers from Quercus, who were chained to the harbour bridge, have now been arrested and will appear in court this morning.

"While the international police are arresting our activists, they should be looking at the real criminals here - the people who are trashing Cameroon's forests and those who are trading in illegal and destructive wood," said Tim Birch, Greenpeace Forest Campaigner. "The G8 governments and the EU have made commitments to stop illegal logging activities 2 years ago and absolutely nothing has happened since!", Birch continues.

Greenpeace and Quercus have contacted the Portuguese Government urging them to take urgent action against the import of illegal and destructive timber into Portugal.

GREENPEACE AND QUERCUS UNCOVER CRIMINAL TIMBER IN PORTUGAL

11 July 2000 Leixoes, Portugal

Greenpeace and the environmental group Quercus today uncovered a cargo of logs and timber coming from a company found to be logging illegally in Cameroon only two weeks ago. The wood was about to enter the European market at the port of Leixoes in Portugal. Greenpeace discovered the wood as volunteers boarded the vessel Aegis, which was known to be carrying logs and timber from the Cameroonian rainforest where illegal and destructive logging practices are the norm .

The wood comes from SFID (Société Industrielle et Forestière de la Doumé) - a Cameroonian subsidiary of the French logging giant Rougier - which was found to be logging illegally during an official inspection by the Cameroonian Government at the end of June this year. The inspection team visited the Mbam-Inoubou area, where it found SFID to be logging beyond the legally agreed boundaries of its operation.

Rougier is one of the largest logging companies operating in Central Africa, and one of the biggest producers of tropical timber in the world. It has large logging operations in Gabon, Cameroon and Congo-Brazzaville, which together amount to more than 1 million hectares of pristine rainforest. The company also buys from third-party suppliers and acts as a subcontractor to log other logging licences. Consequently, the precise origin of the timber that Rougier is exporting is often very difficult to trace.

The area of Rougier's concessions, in the heart of the world's second largest tropical rainforest, is a region of extremely high cultural and ecological value. Some if its concessions contain important populations of endangered species such as western lowland gorillas, chimpanzees and forest elephants, and its logging operations have frequently created social tensions among local peoples.

Rougier has been operating in the Congo Basin for around 50 years, and in the early 1990s its SFID subsidiary was selected to manage the first of a number of pilot projects in Cameroon aimed at addressing concerns over the social and environmental impact of logging operations in Cameroon. Yet, for some of its operations Rougier is still only drafting management plans. More importantly, the company has shown no interest in certification by the Forest Stewardship Council - the only international timber certification scheme currently accepted by large environmental organisations such as WWF, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace.

"Rougier's principal acitivity is the destructive exploitation of Africa's forests," said Greenpeace Forest Campaigner Filip Verbelen. "All of the company's operations in Cameroon are in areas of high conservation value forest, and forest dwelling and other rural communities are directly affected by its logging operations, which bring few - if any - benefits to local people." Rougier exports much of its African timber to its own facilities in France, but has additional key markets in France, Italy and Spain, and increasingly in Southeast Asia. In addition to the timber from SFID arriving in Portugal today, the port at Leixoes is also holding sawntimber from SID (Société Industrielle de Djoum), another of Rougier's Cameroonian subsidiaries currently involved in criminal log production in the Congo Basin.