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Our forests campaign has four main goals.
1. To get China-based palm oil importers – China is the world’s biggest importer of palm oil -- to pledge to only use palm oil from sustainable sources. This comes under the wider goal of stopping deforestation in Indonesia, where logging for palm oil plantations is the main cause of the destruction of the region’s forests.
2. To get China’s home furnishing industry to adopt a Responsible Purchasing Policy (RPP). That means they will only sell wood that is not from illegally-logged or destructively-logged forests.
3. Promote the use of forest-friendly paper which includes recycled and Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified paper in China.
4. To help the Chinese government to protect forests in China. We are keeping a close eye on any possible illegal logging and conversion activities in China, particularly by plantation industry players like Sinar Mas APP. Back in 2004 and 2005 we exposed Sinar Mas APP in an illegal deforestation in Yunnan and Hainan Province.
How are we doing this?
| China is the world's biggest importer and user of palm oil from Southeast Asia |
• We are pushing the big five household furniture companies in China to only buy their wood from sustainable sources and to stop using the hardwood from the endangered Merbau tree. So far four of them have dropped Merbau. In 2007 B&Q had also set up an RPP in China.
• We publish an annual Good Wood guide to tell industry workers and consumers which wood is safe to buy.
• As part of our Book Lovers for Forests project, we attend publishing fairs where we promote the use of forests-friendly paper such as recycled and FSC-certified paper to publishers, authors and the book-buying public.
The Paradise Forests
Even though the Paradise Forests are not in China, Greenpeace China has made this its key project this year because China is now the world’s biggest importer and user of palm oil from the region.
We want to convince Chinese companies to commit to only buying palm oil from sustainable plantations.
Greenpeace believes there is no need to clear any more forest for palm oil, demand can be met by increasing the productivity of existing palm oil plantations.
Although governments in the region have made no strong legislative moves to save their rainforests, we have had some success with corporations.
With Greenpeace UK’s help in 2008 we successfully secured Unilever’s agreement to support an immediate moratorium on deforestation for palm oil in Southeast Asia and set up a coalition of companies to join this moratorium. So far more than 40 companies have joined.
We will continue to witness the destruction of these precious forests and put pressure on government and companies to stop this illegal and destructive practice.
