Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160-164)
MR JOHN
WHITE, MR
ANDY ROBY
AND MR
PETER LATHAM
25 OCTOBER 2005
Q160 Chairman: So if we are talking
slightly at cross purposes, perhaps it would be helpful for me
if I understood what you meant by "potentially illegal logging".
Mr White: Well, I think you can
see in the Greenpeace report and elsewhere what "illegal
logging" means. It is participating in practices which are
contrary to the forest governance and management of the supply
country. It can extend to some pretty awful practices and they
have been well documented. That is what "illegality"
means to me, to us.
Q161 Chairman: It would be helpful
perhaps just to have a little bit more information from you as
to what your understanding is of the figures that are coming in
from China and what concerns you have about that as well.
Mr Roby: Yes, we reckon that there
is a large amount, 30% now, of our tropical hardwood plywood coming
from China. That 30% is probably in the region of 100,000 cubic
metres, though I do not have the exact figures for that. Of that
100,000 cubic metres of timber, 95% of it comes from this plantation-grown
poplar with 5% from this questionable source in Papua New Guinea
about which we now have serious concerns as a supplier country
and which two years ago was not supplying the UK at all. It has
come up because, and here is another sad story of regulation,
the EU put an anti-dumping regulation in place for okoume, which
comes from Gabon, which was being sent to China and used as that
facing veneer, so the Chinese found an alternative in bintangor
which comes from Papua New Guinea, so they switched to bintangor.
We are now going to be asking them to switch to another species
that does not come from Papua New Guinea for the time being until
we are sure that the sources of supply are better.
Q162 Chairman: It would just be helpful
if we could perhaps have a further note on how much of what is
coming in from China in this way is legal and sustainable and
how much is not, just to get some facts on this. I am slightly
confused about it.
Mr White: We will provide that,
yes, if we can get our hands on the exact figures.
Q163 Chairman: But you wrote about
it, so I assume that you have got some facts and figures at your
fingertips on it.
Mr White: Yes, we have.
Q164 Chairman: It does beg the question
that if we have efforts to protect forests, is it going to be
in vain if we do not do something about the situation in respect
of China? Do you agree with that?
Mr White: Yes.
Chairman: Well, at this stage I am conscious
that we have reached the end of the time that we set aside. I
would like to thank all three of you for coming in and giving
evidence this afternoon. Just going back over the evidence we
have had, I think it would be perhaps helpful if we could have
a list of your members who have signed up to the Responsible Purchasing
Policy. That would just give us a bit of a feel for how many have
signed up and how many members there are who still need to sign
up. Thank you very much indeed for your evidence.
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