Greenpeace backs B&Q China on illegal timber ban

Greenpeace has backed a move by B&Q to remove all products containing illegal timber from its 60 stores in China.
 

This follows the announcement from Greenpeace that many timber species commonly sold in stores across China come from countries where up to 80% of the logging is illegal and destructive.
 
Greenpeace China's Campaign Director Lo Sze Ping said: "Unless all companies that trade in timber products make concerted efforts, like B&Q, to clean up the timber trade and ensure that their wood comes from ecologically responsible sources, they will inadvertently contribute to global deforestation and to climate change.
 
"Companies operating in China have a particular onus to take action because China is now the world's largest importer of tropical wood and the rapid expansion of this sector is having a direct impact on the world's forests."
 
Greenpeace is calling on companies around the world to stop selling timber that comes from illegal and destructive sources. It is also calling on governments to ban illegally and destructively logged timber from entering their countries, and on countries that have intact forest landscapes to adopt a moratorium on logging in these areas until comprehensive participatory land-use planning has been completed.