A communications mix-up led to African rainforest timber being sourced for cabinet office refurbishment work, environment minister Michael Meacher told a parliamentary inquiry last week.
Mr Meacher was giving evidence about the refurbishment to the Commons Environmental Audit Committee, following a Greenpeace protest in April (TTJ April 13) which disclosed that £460,000 worth of African sapele used in the project was not independently certified.
He said he was “shocked” to learn that the project’s head of procurement had not received a memo from him two years ago about sustainability. It had left him “puzzled and alarmed” .
“One assumes within government that when you communicate to other government departments, that the relevant instruction goes down the line to the appropriate person and is immediately adhered to,” Mr Meacher said.
He recognised the government had not done enough to communicate the sustainability policy and admitted there was “fragmentation” in the procurement network in departments and local authorities.
However, he said it was difficult to verify the sources of timber from developing countries, describing it as a “minefield”.
Mr Meacher said the government was working towards a new guidance process and aims to build up a chain of custody and information network on timber supplies. He said combatting the trade in illegally logged timber was an “absolute priority”.
Mark O’Brien, head of public affairs at the Timber Trade Federation (TTF), said: “The TTF share the government’s desire to eliminate the trade in illegal timber while recognising that it is a relatively small problem in the UK context.
“We would caution against any policy that resulted in de facto discrimination against tropical hardwoods by making unrealistic demands on markets that have not yet developed certification systems.”
The inquiry, called ‘Buying Time for Forests’, also covers the implementation and effectiveness of the Convention on Internatonal Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) as it relates to timber.
