Feature story - 10 March, 2006
More than four years ago, East Asian governments promised to take “immediate” steps to stop illegal logging. Yet the Paradise Forests are no better off than they were on September 13, 2001 when delegates to the East Asia Forest Law Enforcement and Governance (FLEG) ministerial meeting promised to take action.
The Paradise Forests stretch from South East Asia, across the islands of Indonesia and on towards Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands in the Pacific.
Greenpeace has called on participating FLEG countries to put
words intoaction and address the problem of illegal logging in the
region -before it's too late.
Although the FLEG declaration promised to address forest crime
atall levels, logs that have been illegally harvested still find
theirway to countries like Japan and China. Some logs are used
domestically,others are processed and sold on to markets in Europe
and the USA,where demand for cheap timber and wood products is
high.
FLEG must target both the producer countries (like PNG
andIndonesia) and consumer countries (like China, Japan and the
EU),ensuring governments prosecute individuals and companies
involved inthe illegal timber trade.
The Paradise Forests are among some of the most heavily
loggedareas on earth. Much of the intact areas of these forests
have alreadybeen logged. In Indonesia the figure is as high as 72
percent, in Papua NewGuinea (PNG) it is 60 percent.
At this rate, the Paradise Forests and the unique plants and
animals that live there could be gone in ten years.
Greenpeace ship, the Rainbow Warrior, is on 'Forests Crime
Patrol' fromPNG, through Indonesia and on to Japan to show that,
despitecommitments from governments, illegal logging continues.
At the same time, our volunteers are living and working
alongside locallandowners to showcase community forest solutions at
the Global ForestRescue Station (GFRS) at Lake Murray in Western
Province, PNG.
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