UK companies that import timber from Liberia will find supplies dry up in July when a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) ban comes into force.

The timber sanctions follow intense campaigning by environmentalists who claim there are links between Liberian logging companies connected with illicit arms trading and timber traders throughout Europe and North America.

The UNSC decision on May 6 renewed existing embargoes on trade in arms and diamonds with Liberia and extended them to include a ban on all timber exports with effect from July 7 2003. The ban will affect trade in species including Liberian azobé, sapele, iroko, African mahogany and African walnut.

&#8220Our sympathies are with the Liberian people. If the sanctions are ratified we will of course adhere to them – but they will have more affect on the Liberians than they will on us”

Nick Goodwin of NHG Timber Ltd

Buckinghamshire-based Barnes Branch & Co Ltd has imported timber from Liberia. Director Peter Barnes said: “All this ban will do is force up the price of timber and make African timber companies go bust. It is not the duty of the timber trade to talk politics, and if the UN brings in a ban we will obey it.”

Another importer, Nick Goodwin of NHG Timber Ltd, said: “Our sympathies are with the Liberian people. If the sanctions are ratified we will of course adhere to them – but they will have more affect on the Liberian people than they will on us.”