Activists take fight to save Indonesian rainforests to Tilbury

Inside an anonymous, dirty warehouse at Tilbury Docks marked "38 shed" lie tons of the remnants of the dwindling Indonesian rainforest.

Row after row of pallets of cheap builders' plywood are the product of the world's fastest forest destruction, which has sent the population of orang-utans into freefall in their last natural home.

But before lorries arrived yesterday to pick up the wood bound for builders' yards across Britain, Greenpeace activists moved into the port complex and daubed thousands of the crates with the slogan, "Stop Illegal Timber" and hung a banner over shed 38 that read, "Here lies Indonesia's Rainforest".

Much of the wood was stamped "Indonesian Sustained Yield Produce". Yet, in an industry still dominated by the cronies of former president Suharto, activists said nothing was sustainable about the crop.

The action, witnessed by The Independent, involved a large number of pallets stamped with the logo of the Barito Pacific timber company. Much of its wood comes from Sumatra and Kalimantan, where the World Bank has predicted that lowland forests will be destroyed by 2010 if current rates of felling continue.

A shipment of timber from south-east Asia arrived at Tilbury on Friday. It can remain for up to a month before being collected and distributed to builders' yards.

In response to pressure on builders' merchants, two of the biggest, Jewson and Travis Perkins, have suspended buying from Indonesia. Other companies, including Finnforest, Montague Meyer and Caledonian Plywood, continue with the trade.

John Sauven, a Greenpeace forests campaigner, said: "When these goods are distributed across the country people will be aware of what they are buying in a way they could not before. The noose is tightening on the timber trade."

He said sustainable sources were readily available and called for legislation to stop the import of illegally logged timber.

Barito Pacific, the largest plywood exporter in the world, was one of the biggest beneficiaries of Suharto's distribution of forestry concessions. The company is accused of illegal logging, tax evasion and illegal burning of the rainforest.

Greenpeace estimates that 88 per cent of logging in Indonesia will be illegal this year.