Mendip Plywood chairman and chief executive John Pickford is being billed as the first timber trader in the UK to go public and admit that he could have bought plywood based on illegally felled material.

His revelation came on Australia’s ABC TV when he said that, despite having all the right paperwork, he did not always know the origins of the plywood he bought from Indonesia, Malaysia and Brazil.

He also said that other British companies could be guilty of buying illegal plywood, agreeing with the interviewer that it had long been an open secret in the trade that illegal timber was being made into wood products for sale in the UK.

Mr Pickford was appearing in a documentary ‘The Timber Mafia’ broadcast on the Australian programme Four Corners which set out to investigate the highly organised international timber rackets that have plagued Indonesia for years.

Mr Pickford told TTJ this week he decided to speak out for the good of the trade, adding: “Illegal logging and illegal trade goes on – but if it was controlled everything would be that much better.”

The programme, due to be shown on the BBC later this year, also featured Faith Doherty of the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency who told how she and a colleague were kidnapped and threatened by timber barons in Indonesia two years ago.

&#8220The more people work with environmental agencies and the governments that control the forests of these countries, the more chance there will be of success in controlling these things which will benefit everybody in the long run.”

John Pickford, Mendip Plywood

UK environment minister Michael Meacher also made an appearance and was asked why the British government had not passed a law making it illegal to bring stolen timber or wood products into the UK.

Mr Pickford said things would not change until somebody started to investigate illegal logging and decided it was doing irreparable harm.

He added: “I think that the more people work with environmental agencies and the governments that control the forests of these countries, the more chance there will be of success in controlling these things which will benefit everybody in the long run.

“If people don’t co-operate then someone could go to buy a cargo of plywood and find there is no more forest left.”